1^1'^. 




GassJlJ/ 7/ 



Book 'Tr 



1^71- 



Accession Number: 



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Book Number: 



A 



TRAVELS IN AFRICA 



REVISED BY THE EDITORS. 




Rhinoceros. 



NEW YORK: 

CARLTON & LANAHAN. 

CINCINNATI: HITCHCOCK & WALDEN 

SDNDAY-SCHOOL DEPARTMENT. 



By tranefa* 



/g7Z 



^ RECEJVEO / 

^ ¥ 8 }B6i 



PREFACE 



TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 



Though the following is a very imperfect 
description of those parts of the African conti- 
nent which are known, it may be relied on as 
a faithful abridgment of the accounts given by 
different travellers of veracity. 

The object of uniting these separate accounts 
into one unbroken narrative must be obvious to 
every one. Though the person introduced, 
however, as the narrator, be a fictitious charac- 
ter, so far as it is connected with African tra- 
vels, it is much to be apprehended that many 
such as he are to be found in every walk of 
life. Should one of them meet with this little 
book, and learn from it the lesson it is intended 
to give — that we should rest contented in that 
station in which almighty Wisdom has placed 
us — the Travels in Africa will not have been 
written in vain. , 



TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 



There are few of the inhabitants of Dublin 
who have not, at one period or another, visited 
the country which Hes south of that capital, and 
in which are situated the small village of Ennis- 
kerry and the watefall beyond it. Its beauty 
is so well known, that travellers have even gone 
from a distance to see it, and I believe no on6 
could ever say he returned disappointed from his 
excursion. On the right, as you approach En- 
niskerry, lies a range of hills, which are called 
the Dublin Mountains. On the left is the fine 
expanse of sea which stretches between the Dun- 
leary shore and the Hill of Howth : and in front 
you see the Killiney Hills, and the greater and 
less Sugar-loaf, so called from their resembling 
the shape in which white sugar is made up for 
sale. With such a sea and mountain prospect 
before you, it may be well supposed that man 
can do but little to increase its beauty, and yet, 
majestic as are these objects, they are, as it were, 
set off by the richly cultivated land which ex- 
tends on all sides. Pleasure grounds, fields, 
and woods ; the mansions of the wealthy, the 
populous village, the substantial farm-house, are 



8 TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 

scattered here and there at short distances from 
each other; and though along the roadside you 
will occasionally see cottages of a mean and 
neglected appearance, a stranger would say that 
the general appearance of the people betokened 
industry. I must acknowledge that we have too 
much reason to condemn the peasant who suf- 
fers a pool of water to collect before his door, 
whensby a little care and attention the hollow 
might be filled up ; who had sooner stop his 
broken window with dirty rags than have it 
mended with glass ; and who lets the outside 
walls of his cabin remain quite black, when a 
few pennyworth of quicklime would make them 
look as neat as they are now filthy ; but why 
should the slovenly habits of a few bring re- 
proach on any but themselves ? 'Tis true, you 
will now and then meet with a woman who 
seems as if she never used a comb or water, so 
blowzed is her hair under a very soiled cap, and 
so black her skin ; but a man would not be tell- 
ing truth, if he denied that by far the greater 
number are both neat and clean in their persons. 
'Tis true, also, you might formerly have met 
troops of ragged dirty children shouting and 
playing along the road or in the villages, quar- 
relling with one another, and sometimes saying 
bad words — at present, however, the case is 
widely altered. Thanks be to those to whom 
God has given not alone the means, but the 
inclination to be useful, schools are set up in 
different places, where the young are taught to 
spend their time in another manner ; they learn 



TRAVELS IN AFRICA. i 

to read, to write, to cast accounts, to shun bad 
company, to do to others as they would wish to 
have done to themselves, and to read their Bi- 
bles. Their parents, also, however uninstructed 
they may be, know too well that ignorance is 
often the parent of vice, and that the surest way 
of calling down a blessing on their offspring is, 
to teach them honesty toward man, and piety 
toward God ; so that itis not too much to expect 
that a short time will see every one, however 
humble his condition, able to take up an instruct- 
ive book after working hours, and to find a 
pleasure in reading it. 

I said the country was sufficiently beautiful 
to attract even strangers from a distance, and 
though many a spot will engage attention, I think 
it would be difficult to point out one so highly 
interesting as the approach to the Scalp. This 
is a pass between two hills, which seem as if 
they had once been joined together, forming one 
mountain, and had been rent asunder by some 
violent earthquake ; thus showing us how God 
can, in one moment, perform what the art of 
man could never effect. These two hills now 
stand apart from each other, and a fair and spa- 
cious road runs between them, leading from 
Dublin to Enniskerry. This road is long and 
straight, and the traveller, in approaching the 
Scalp from Dublin, sees through it to the great 
Sugar-loaf Hill, which lies beyond, and seems 
to close the pass through which he would jour- 
ney. From the Scalp to the foot of the Wicklow 
Hills stretches a beautiful fertile valley ; in 



10 TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 

which, at about two miles' distance, may be seen 
rising the smoke of the town of Enniskerry. In 
the fields, on the right you may still see the re- 
mains of what has once been a neat and com- 
fortable farm-house, the scene of health and in- 
dustry, and of domestic happiness, until children 
became disobedient, and two virtuous, honest, 
and industrious parents were left destitute, and 
worse than childless. They had spared no 
pains in bringing up their children, a boy and 
a girl, in habits of honesty and industry ; but 
what is the profit of all a parent's care if chil- 
dren will not try to mend their own faults, and, 
by being good and dutiful, endeavour to repay 
their care and affection ? It grieves me to say 
how wayward they both proved ; but, perhaps, 
they may serve as a warning to others. 

The girl left her father and mother, married 
against their will, and fell into poverty ; and the 
boy quitted his home, and went to sea, enticed 
away by an old school-fellow and companion of 
his, who often, as they used to walk or work in 
the fields together, would tell him what a fine 
thing it would be to go abroad together and see 
foreign parts ; and Tom sometimes lent an ear 
to him, and then they would lay out their plans 
together. But I must do Tom the justice to say, 
that often, after talking in this way, when he re- 
turned from work in the evening, and saw his 
home so cheerful, his father and mother sitting 
by the fire, awaiting him, and a cleanly comfort- 
able supper ready to sit down to ; and when he 
used to think how his sister Lucy had deserted 



TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 11 

them, his heart would smite him while he said 
to himself, — I never can resolve to quit such a 
happy home. 

Many an hour of grief and sorrow Tom might 
have spared his poor parents and. himself, if he 
had been steady enough to abide by these good 
feelings. If people considered how many bless- 
ings they have at home, and iiow thankful they 
should be for them, they would never, I am sure, 
quit their own country, and seek for happiness 
in foreign lands. So thought poor Tom when 
after ten years he returned once more to the 
foot of his Wicklow mountains, and found what 
alterations time had made during his absence. 
His poor mother had never held up her head 
after he quitted her, and a mound of earth in the 
neighbouring church-yard showed Tom her hum- 
ble grave. 

His father, thus left alone, at first gave way 
to his grief, and could not bear to stir himself 
about his farm, or look after his house ; but 
Jackson was a good man, and had always read 
his Bible, and he knew what is required of us 
all, each in our own situation of life, and that 
there is no one, however humble, or poor, or 
unhappy, that has not his duties to perform : 
and that it would not be fulfilling his duty 
either to God or man to let his little farm go to 
ruin, and neglect all the blessings he still en- 
joyed. " Though the world should go hard 
with us, we have still religion to comfort us," 
said he, " and in God we have a friend who will 
never leave us." His health, indeed, declined, 



12 TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 

and he never was again the same hale, stout man 
he had been before his sorrows came on ; but he 
was still to be seen engaged in his field, or work- 
ing in his little garden. The place never again 
looked the same that it had done in his prosper- 
ous days ; his good wife, who used to share all 
his labours, was dead — his children had both 
forsaken him, and after his day's toil on his farm 
he had but a lonely home to return to. The 
neighbours, however, were kind and friendly, 
and few ever passed by the farm house without 
calling to see him, and telling him the village 
news. Jackson himself seldom quitted his own 
little spot of ground to meddle in such matters, 
and yet he liked to hear what was going on in 
the world, and whenever any difficulty occurred, 
he had always a word of advice for an acquaint- 
ance. On a summer's evening he was always to 
be found, when labour was over, seated under 
an old thorn-tree which grew before the door, 
and which he himself had planted the day his son 
was born, thinking how his little child and this 
young plant might flourish alike. This was 
always his favourite seat in the summer even- 
ings, and who will wonder that, at such a time, 
something like hope that Tom might yet return 
would now and then come across the old man's 
mind ? 

It was on such an evening as this that a 
neighbour, returning from the market at Bray, 
stopped as he was passing by Jackson's door, 
and told him he had heard of a person who had 
landed from a ship in the bay, and was making 



TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 13 

earnest inquiry after farmer Jackson, so that, 
says he, may be he might have news of Tom for 
you, and I'll send my boy to make inquiries, and, 
if you wish, to bring him to you. " No, neigh- 
bour, no," cries Jackson, "I'll go myself;" and 
starting up, he took the way across the fields 
to the next village, and in ten minutes afterward 
was clasped in his son's arms. 

" Father, how will you ever forgive me for 
all the wrong I've done you ? but I've paid 
dearly for it, in all I've suffered since I left 
you," — these were Tom's first words ; and again 
he begged his father's forgiveness ; while poor 
Jackson could only think of the happiness of the 
present moment, and welcome his lost child 
home again. , 

They walked back together to the cottage, 
and there, for many an evening afterward, did 
Tom recite to his father all he had seen and 
gone through during the ten long years he had 
been away. " The day I left you, father," he 
began, " Jem Hobson and I made the best of 
our way to Dublin. He met an acquaintance 
as we were walking through the town, who told 
him he was going to sail for Liverpool that 
night, in the hopes he might be able to get work 
there. He was, like ourselves, dissatisfied with 
his lot, and thought any change must be for the 
better ; but, as I was told afterward, he had 
good reason to say his own country was the best 
of all, for in a few months he returned without 
a penny in his pocket." 

" I know he did," said farmer Jackson, " for 



14 TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 

it was by his return I heard what had become 
of you." 

" Well," said Tom, " Jem Hobson and I went 
down to the Pigeon House with him, about four 
o'clock in the evening, and we all three sailed 
that night. The weather was fine, the moon- 
light was bright, and I had a feeling such as I 
cannot describe to you ; when I saw the fine 
ocean all around me, and felt that it could carry 
me all over the world, I thought myself the hap- 
piest fellow alive." 

" Ay, Tom, so people always think, and so 
I once thought myself," said his father, " that to 
have what we call our freedom is the finest thing 
in the world ; and so it is the first of blessings, 
when we enjoy true freedom, and when we know 
how to use it aright. But, Tom, tell me is that 
true freedom which a child obtains by ca&ting 
off a parent's authority, disobeying and desert- 
ing him ? You've cost me and your poor mother 
many a sorrowful hour ; but it's all over now ; 
her troubles are ended, and I trust, my son, so 
are mine. Young people always believe the 
world to be full of joy, until by experience they 
find it to be full of care." 

" I believe you are right," said Tom, " for 
often I wondered afterward how I could ever 
have felt such pleasure in quitting my native 
land. We reached Liverpool in about thirty- 
six hours ; Jem's friend got into work in a day 
or two, but it was not so easy a matter for Jem 
and me, who had not been trained up to any 
trade but the farming business, the harvest 



TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 15 

being all made up before we went there. We 
loitered about the town idle day after day, 
heartily tired of having nothing to do, and the 
little sum we had scraped together melting 
away by degrees : ' And is this,' thought I, 
' what I have exchanged my father's comfort- 
able cottage for, where, though potatoes and 
milk, and perhaps a bit of bacon on a Sunday 
was all we had to live upon, there was plenty 
of it, and kind neighbours about us : and here 
am I, poor and alone in this great town V Still, 
I must own, we were not cured of our love of 
rambling. We rnight have returned home, but, 
like fools, we thought only of the laugh that 
would be raised against us ; so, in order to es- 
cape that, we made bad worse, by resolving to 
go to sea. Once determined on this, there was 
no difficulty of putting it in practice. Liver- 
pool is always crowded with merchant vessels, 
and as at that time there was a great want of 
hands, we soon engaged with a captain who 
was going on a distant voyage to South Ame- 
rica ; this, however, was no objection, for Jem 
and I cared not much where we went. At 
first he told us he had already as many men as 
his ship required, and that, at all events, he 
did not like engaging landsmen, on account of 
their ignorance of the sea-faring life ; but being 
a humane man, and seeing that we were active 
and sober, and only wished to be industriously 
employed he at length consented to hire us. 
The ship was to sail the very next day. I 
remember the time, father, when I thought it 



16 TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 

would take a fortune to fit myself out for such 
a voyage as I was now about to commence, but 
limes were changed with us, and Jem and I 
went on board the Caledonia with nothing but 
the clothes upon our backs. You will believe 
it, my heart almost failed me next day when I 
found myself leaving British ground, perhaps 
for ever ; besides, you don't know what it is to 
trust one's self, almost for the first time, to the 
wide ocean, with nothing but a board between 
you and death. 

" A fair wind from the north-east bore us 
down the channel, and for the first few days, 
except that I suffered dreadfully from sea-sick- 
ness, nothing occurred to make me repent of 
my voyage. It was on the 17th of June we 
sailed from Liverpool, and, as we had favour- 
able breezes, our voyage went on prosperously 
for a while ; to me every thing was new ; and 
I wish I could remember now to tell you all the 
strange sights I saw ; the very fish that swam 
by the ship, and the sea birds that flew over our 
heads, were all strange to me : and whichever 
way I turned, there was nothing around me but 
sky and water. 

" We had been about a fortnight at sea when, 
in the evening, shortly before sunset, I heard the 
man at the mast-head cry out, ' Land.' I looked 
about me, but could see nothing like it, till at 
length one of the sailors pointed out what ap- 
peared to me only a faint cloud at a vast distance, 
which he told me was the Island of Madeira. 
By degrees, we approached nearer and nearer, 



TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 17 

and by the next morning came so close in that 
we could plainly see the difFprent towns and 
villages along the coast ; by and by we could 
distinguish, farther up the country, houses with 
the trees and gardens surrounding them, and I 
was told that when the wind blows off the land, 
the fine perfume of the orange trees with which 
the island abounds can be perceived out at sea 
to the distance of half a league. This was the 
first strange land I had ever seen : I longed of 
all things to go ashore, but the captain would not 
permit one of the men to leave the ship. Seve- 
ral boats came out to us from the island, the 
people civilly inviting us to land, and offering us 
a supply of water and provisions ; but our ship 
was plentifully supplied with both. They offered 
us a kind of wine which is made there, and is 
very much liked by good judges, but we had 
no need of any. 

" We anchored that night in the Bay of Fun- 
chal, which is the principal town in the island, 
and sailed again the next morning. The follow- 
ing day showed us a wonderfully high mountain, 
rising at a great distance from us, and called 
the Peak of Teneriffe. I can never forget the 
wonder with which I looked at it. I thought 
our Wicklow mountains very high, but they're 
only stepping stones compared to this on6. We 
did not touch at the island, but bore down to 
the southward. 

" For a few days we went on prosperously, and 
I became more and more satisfied with my con- 
dition ; but I soon found that I was then expe- 
2 



18 TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 

riencing only the sweets of a seaman's life, and 
that I knew nothing yet of its hardships ; though 
hard enough I used to think it, at first, to be 
obliged to climb up the shrouds, until my head 
grew giddy ; and I, who never knew what it 
was to be without my warm comfortable bed 
to sleep the whole night in, was now forced to 
be content to lie for a couple of hours at a time, 
when it came to my turn, and to work hard, day 
and night, wet or dry, hot or cold. But this, I 
found, was nothing to what sailors have some- 
times to endure. Shortly after this, it was on 
the second of July, about noon, there was 
every appearance of a violent storm coming on. 
The sky grew dark, the wind rose, and the 
waves began to swell. The captain called out 
to every man to do his duty. Never shall I 
forget the scene that followed. The storm be- 
came in a few hours so violent, and the ship 
tossed so, that I thought she would have gone 
down between every sea. The w^hole of the 
next night we continued in this dreadful situa- 
tion, the waves dashing over us every moment, 
and the wind blowing with such fury, that we 
began to be apprehensive lest we should be 
driven on the shore of Africa- We fired se- 
veral guns, as signals of distress, but there was 
not a vessel in sight ; and if you could have 
witnessed the scene that was before us when 
daylight dawned, nothing around us but waves 
rolling mountain high, and the men, who but 
two days before looked so stout-hearted and 
hardy, now worn out witli fatigue, you would 



TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 19 

« 

have pitied us. The captain was the only man 
v^^ho looked like himself, but he was steady to 
the last. For my part, overcome with terror, I 
could only implore the Almighty to preserve us. 
I promised that if it would please him to restore 
me to my home again, I never would quit it more. 
I thought of you and my poor mother ; I thought 
of all the good you had ever taught me, and be- 
lieved a judgment was come upon me for having 
deserted you; but it was now too late for such 
reflections. In the morning early some of th'e 
seamen had thought they could discern land at 
a great distance, and a few hours proved them 
to be right. At noon I had occasion to go be- 
low, when a cry of ' land,' was raised ; again 
I hastened upon deck, and could plainly distin- 
guish a long line of coast to the south-east ; but 
we had no means of either guiding the ship, or 
judging whereabouts we were. Rudder, anchor, 
and compass were gone. However, the sight 
of land cheered us a little. 

" But it was just at this moment, when hope 
had .somewhat returned to us, that we found 
ourselves surrounded by dangers we had little 
expected. Upon sounding, the captain began 
to fear by the shallowness of the water, that we 
were near sand banks. Shortly after we touched 
upon one, and though, by lowering the sails, 
lightening the vessel, and taking down the top- 
gallant mast and top-mast, we soon succeeded 
in setting the ship afloat again, we were in 
continual fear every moment lest we should 
come upon another. In about an hour alter- 



20 TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 

ward we did so, with such a shock as I thought 
would have knocked the ship to pieces. All 
our efforts to set her free again were now quite 
in vain : every thing was done to lighten her, 
the few guns she carried were thrown over- 
board ; we cut down the mast ; we tried half 
the day to set her afloat again, and sometimes 
you'd think she was quite free : she swung so 
loosely, her stern alone touched a little ; but, 
from the violence of the winds and waves, it 
was impossible to disengage her entirely. At 
length one of the men from below was heard to 
cry out that she had sprung a leak. All hands 
hastened to the pumps, but to no purpose; 
the water came in faster than we could work it 
out, and in less than an hour she filled nearly 
as high as the lower deck hatchway. 

" The captain now, seeing that all was over, 
declared he would not leave the ship to the last, 
but ordered the boats to be hoisted over, and we 
threw into them such provisions as we could 
find, in the hurry and confusion of the moment; 
some casks of biscuit and flour, and a small sup- 
ply of water. A few of the men jumped into 
them, and had orders from the captain to keep 
them under the lee of the ship, and to be ready 
to receive the crew when every effort should 
fail : the whole of the crew consisted of about 
nine and the captain. 

" The storm now raged with increased vio- 
lence, the ship filled worse and worse, anc* 
threatened every instant to go to pieces. At 
length, the captain called out to every man to 



TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 21 

save himself. O, father, such a scene as there 
v^^as then ; almost every one flew to the boats 
except poor Jem Hobson : — in the hurry and 
terror of the moment, his first idea was to save 
himself by swimming ; he sprang into the sea 
before our eyes, and not even at the same side 
of the ship that the boats were lying at, for 
then we might, perhaps, have saved him, though 
the waves ran tremendously high. I saw him 
rise twice ; I threw him an oar — he could not 
reach it — I threw him a rope ; he caught at it, 
but the other end had not been made fast to the 
ship ; it gave way with him, and I never saw 
him more. I was in the act of springing into 
the sea after him, when some person grasped 
my arm, and forcibly dragged me, crying out, 
' What keeps you here, every one!s gone but 
you V And sure enough, when I turned around, 
I saw that there was not a creature on board 
with me but one. 'We both now leaped into 
one of the boats, together, and, in a few mi- 
nutes, the ship went to pieces before our eyes. 
It is a sorrowful sight to see a fine noble-look- 
ing ship, built so strong that you might think it 
would last for ever, and which, as they told me, 
had gone twice around the world, before ever I 
saw her — to see her knocked about by the 
waves, until there were hardly two planks of 
her together." 

" How wonderful are the ways of Providence, 
my son ; thus it is that the mightiest works of 
man come to an end ; and yet who need won- 
der they should, when God ordained that even 



22 TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 

this earth, and every thing else that he created, 
shall one tmie or other be destroyed. But, Tom, 
tell me how far were you from that shore that 
you had seen: and were you able to reach it 
before night ?" 

" We rowed hard all the day long, for we 
dreaded night coming upon us in our open boats, 
and in such a dreadful sea. Sometimes we 
were so nearly under water, that you would 
think we were going to the bottom : then the 
waves would carry up the boat almost as high 
as the clouds. In this way we toiled for hour 
after hour. We had plenty of oars, for the cap- 
tain had been careful to throw into the boats 
every thing he could lay his hands on, that he 
thought we might want. Why, father, one act- 
ive man like him does more good at such a time 
than twenty others. There was Jem Hobson, 
who, all the time the ship was in danger, never 
did a hand's turn to save her, and then, after all, 
to jump into the sea just like a madman ! 

" It was growing dusk when we reached the 
shore, which was a very rocky one. There 
was no easy landing, such as I had at Liver- 
pool; but from the force of the sea, the boats 
were lifted up by a prodigious wave, and laid 
high and dry upon the beach : and seeing no 
kind of habitation at all near, we lashed them 
fast to the rocks, with what cordage we had 
with us, in order that we might have the means 
of escaping if any thing should happen to us ; 
though if we had been obliged to venture out 
to sea in the open boats, we saw nothing before 



TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 23 

US but the chance of their being swamped. We 
laid ourselves down to sleep upon the shore, 
one of us at a time keeping watch through 
the night, for fear of any wild beasts coming 
upon us, and we kept close beside us what 
fire-arms we had." 

" But, Tom, I hope the first thing you all did 
was to thank God for having so mercifully saved 
you." " Indeed, father, our hearts were filled 
with gratitude, and I trust the prayers we then 
offered up to him proceeded from men duly 
afllected by his undeserved mercy. 

" We rested but badly, as you may sup- 
pose ; the fatigue of working the ship had been 
so great that any one might think we could 
have slept upon a rock ; but some of us had 
thrown oflf both jackets and shoes, that we 
might, if necessary, the more easily swim 
ashore ; we were covered with bruises, the 
waves had so knocked us about : completely 
drenched with the sea water, and without shel- 
ter, and besides all this, the place on which we 
were cast had the appearance of a desert ; not 
a tree was in sight ; no grass, not even a hill, 
nor, in short, any thing but sand, as far as the 
eye could reach ; and to add to all our sorrows, 
the captain told us we were on the coast of 
Africa. We afterward found it was a few miles 
south of Cape Blanco, which is on the western 
coast of Africa, and in the twentieth degree of 
latitude." 

" Well, but, Thomas, the blacks were kind 
to you, I hope ; a shipwrecked man well de- 



^ 24 TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 

serves pity, and none but a savage would re- 
fuse it." 

" That's true," said the son, " but that's ex- 
actly what the people are, who live in this part 
of Africa. They go almost naked, wearing 
only a rug or skin around their waist, their 
upper parts, and from the knees downward, 
being quite bare of covering ; their hair is not 
curled and woolly, like the blacks whom you 
sometimes see, but very long and straight ; 
those that we saw were called Moors, and 
live in tents made of woven goats' hair. They 
frequently remove from one place to another, 
according to the season of the year, or the 
convenience of pasturage. In the month of 
February, when the heat of the sun scorches 
up every sort of vegetation, they strike their 
tents, and approach the Negro country, to the 
south, where they reside till the rain com- 
mences in the month of July. At this time, 
having purchased corn and other necessaries 
in exchange for salt, they again depart north- 
ward, and continue in the desert till the rains 
are over." 

" This wandering and restless way of life," 
said Jackson, " must inure their bodies to hard- 
ships." 

" Yes, it does," said Tom, " but it renders 
them fierce and unsocial. Cut off from all in- 
tercourse with their more industrious neigh- 
bours, whom they are more ready to plunder 
than to trade with, they never show kindness to 
any but those of their own tribe or nation, and 



TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 25 

seem to consider all the rest of mankind as their 
natural enemies. Such are the vices of human 
nature, when unacquainted with true religion. 
During the time they remain south of the desert, 
they hover about the coast for the purpose of 
plundering any vessels which suffer shipwreck, 
and of seizing such of the crew as survive, in 
order to make them slaves. 

" But, father, why should you wonder that 
these ignorant heathens show no mercy to the 
poor shipwrecked seamen, when, in our own 
country, we sometimes hear of the same barba- 
rity. I met a man in the ship that brought me 
to England, who said he had been once cast 
away on the western coast of Ireland, and that 
the people came down to the wreck in great 
crowds, and not only stripped him, but actually 
took every thing they could lay their hands on. 
I could not believe it : I told him it was false ; 
for I felt myself roused at such a charge against 
my countrymen. I said no Christian could be 
found so barbarous." 

" Ay, Thomas," said old Jackson, " I wish 
that every one who calls himself a Christian, 
would act as such ; but how many do not ! I 
have often heard myself of such doings, and 
don't know how men who are unmerciful to 
their fellow creatures can hope to receive mercy 
from God. But I suppose the man you had 
accused of falsehood struck you ?" 

" No, indeed," said Thomas, " he did not ; 
and it was not for want of courage either, for he 
had been in many a sea fight ; but he was a 



26 TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 

sensible man, and very religious. I never shall 
forget the mild check he gave me : * Another 
man, Thomas,' said he, ' would perhaps give you 
a sound threshing for calling him a liar ; but I 
think that a very foolish, and I know it is a very 
wrong way of settling a dispute ; besides, it 
wouldn't convince you, after all, that I was right. 
But look at this,' added he, (showing me the 
mark of a great cut which he had in his arm,) 
* I got this because I resisted three of them who 
endeavoured to strip me.' But to return to my 
story. As soon as it is known through the coun- 
try that a ship has been wrecked, and that any 
part of the cargo has been saved by the inha- 
bitants of the coast where the catastrophe hap- 
pened, a market is immediately opened, to which 
the Arabs who live in the northern parts of Af- 
rica come from a great distance to buy the 
plunder ; but they are much more knowing than 
those who sell, who are so extremely ignorant 
that they will dispose of the most valuable arti- 
cles for a mere trifle. I saw English bank 
notes exchanged for a few dates, a fruit that 
grows in great plenty in Barbary and Morocco j 
the buyer cunningly pretending that they were 
nothing but pieces of waste paper. Watches, 
clothes, muslins, silks, linens, they gladly barter 
for horses, camels, or any of the very few arti- 
cles which their wretched way of living requires. 
They, however, know the value of guns and 
pistols, swords, bits of old iron and nails, and 
don't part with them so readily. However, you 
must not think every thing goes on smoothly 



TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 27 

with these robbers ; they often find the truth 
•of the old proverb — that honesty is the best 
poHcy. It sometimes happens, when the crew 
and cargo of a wreck fall into the hands of a 
party who are too weak to defend their prize, 
that a stronger party attacks them, and, after 
much bloodshed, either carries off every thing 
by force, or obliges them to surrender their 
plunder for what is far below the value they put 
on it. However, the next morning, at daybreak, 
we were surrounded by about fifty of these 
savages, and made prisoners. From the wreck 
they got little more than the iron works ; for the 
vessel having bilged, the cargo was almost en- 
tirely lost. Here we stayed thirteen days ; in 
fact, as long as the Moors thought it likely that 
any more of the wreck would be washed ashore. 
We also suflfered much from hunger, fish being 
the only food we had ; so that, when the weather 
was bad, we were in danger of starving. The 
mode of dressing the fish is by cutting it into 
pieces, and letting it broil on the hot sand by 
the sun's heat. Among the things that floated 
ashore was a chest which contained some fish- 
ing lines and hooks ; but though we oflfered to 
teach them their use, they refused to be in- 
structed. 

" Immediately after we had been made pri- 
soners, they stripped us ; hiding our clothes in 
the sand, for fear that some stronger tribe would 
come and seize them. Being thus exposed to 
the sun, our bodies became dreadfully blistered. 
In Ireland you can have no idea of the heat we 



28 TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 

endured ; indeed, it is more like the glow which 
is felt on putting your hand inside an oven. At 
night we had no dew ; but the air still continued 
so hot that we were obliged to dig holes in the 
sand to sleep in, for the sake of coolness. Add 
to this, we were soon covered with vermin ; for 
the Moors actually swarmed with them. 

" About a week after the shipwreck, our cap- 
tain died ; a better seaman never stepped a deck, 
and until we left the ship, and saw her going to 
pieces, he bore up like a man, and set us all an 
example of courage and resignation ; but from 
the moment he set foot on shore he began to 
droop. He had been all his life at sea, and, by 
great industry, had saved some money ; for 
being always a sober, careful man, the mer- 
chants were ever anxious to employ him. He 
had ventured his all in the vessel ; and when 
he saw the fruit of so much labour swallowed 
up by the waves, he could not, he said, survive 
it. One of my shipmates told me he. had left 
a wife and two children in Liverpool, and that 
he had the name of a good husband, father, and 
friend." 

" Thomas," said his father, " the captain 
ought to have borne misfortune better ; in this 
world it is often our lot to suffer; and happy is 
the man whose sorrows are not caused by liis 
own misconduct : but we should always be re- 
signed, and say, * The will of God be done.' 
Had he, in place of giving way to useless sor- 
row, exerted himself, and hoped for the best, he 
might have been, like you, telling all he saw 



TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 29 

and suffered to his family. But did the Moors 
treat him ill ?" 

" Yes, they did. They knew he was our 
captain, and foolishly thought he had hid a great 
many articles in the sand. They used sometimes 
to beat him, and leave him exposed to the wea- 
ther at night, by way of forcing him to give up 
all ; so that at last, partly from bad treatment, 
and partly from not exerting himself, he died. 
A few days after, we who survived him were 
near falling under the hands of the savages who 
had seized us. In sharing the spoil, they fell out 
among themselves, and immediately began to 
fight most ferociously. What an alteration does 
anger make in the human face ! They gnashed 
their teeth at each other, they gave the most 
hideous yells ; their eyes were red and fiery, 
and, in short, they looked like any thing rather 
than human beings. . Nor must you suppose our 
situation to have been free from danger during 
the dispute : they dragged us from side to side ; 
they cut at each other over our heads, making 
their crooked swords, which are called scimitars, 
whiz through the air, alm'ost within an inch of us ; 
the blood, streaming from every gash, ran down 
their naked bodies, increasing the frightfulness 
of their appearance. I was too much in fear of 
my life to think much ; but when I afterward 
brought it to mind, I thought what a dreadful 
passion anger must be, when it can be the cause 
of so much cruelty, and I firmly resolved to 
strive against it. A division of the prisoners 
being miide among the conquerors, the mate. 



30 ' TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 

another man, named Williams, and I were left 
in possession of twenty Moors, who immediately- 
prepared to leave the coast. They had four 
camels, three of which carried water, and the 
other fish, which was to be our food, and the 
baggage. We sometimes travelled fifteen miles 
a day ; and this continued for about thirty days, 
during which time we did not meet a human be- 
ing, and saw nothing but sand. We then reached 
a spot, lying, as I believe, nearly due east of 
the place which we had left, where we found 
about thirty tents." 

" But why," said Jackson, " would you load 
the camels with water ? Surely, in so long a 
journey you must have met with many a spring 
of water." 

" Not a drop," answered Thomas : " the part 
of Africa through which we passed was a great 
desert. I heard it was compared to an ocean 
of sand, through which you might travel for 
months together, without seeing a spot fit for 
a man to live in, or finding a drop of water. 
The people, therefore, who are obliged to cross 
this wide waste must carry with them as much 
as will serve them until they reach the very few 
w^ells which are scattered over the country, at 
great distances from each other. Nor must you 
wonder at the scarcity of water in a place where 
the sun is so hot as to burn up the few things 
which grow in so sandy a soil ; indeed, the 
ground becomes so burning that the negroes 
themselves can scarcely bear, during the mid- 
day heat, to stand on it with their naked feet." 



TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 31 

" However," said Jackson, " it must be un- 
wise to use such large beasts as camels. I should 
think they could scarcely carry water enough for 
their own drinking, much less for those who are 
travelling with them." 

" Father," said Thomas, " the more we see, the 
more we ought to bless God for all his mercies. 
Unless he had given them the camel, this desert 
would have been entirely impassable ; but with 
it they can take the longest journeys, the animal 
not needing water for twelve or fifteen days at a 
time : indeed, it has been called the ship of the 
desert. Before it sets out, it drinks a great 
quantity, which remains, as if in a store cask, 
quite sweet and good, until the creature wants 
it to moisten its food. His master knows this, 
and will sometimes kill a camel, if hard pressed, 
in order to get the water that is in the stomach ; 
a thing that is likely to occur very often, when 
we think how many accidents may happen to 
delay their coming to each of the wells at the 
time expected, particularly when they have no 
path to guide them. Its feet are very broad, 
partly divided, and the sole consists of a tough 
elastic cushion : a structure which keeps the 
creature from sinking in the sand. There are 
seven hard thick lumps, one upon the breast, 
two on each fore leg, and one upon each hind 
leg. On these the camel rests when kneeling 
to sleep, or to receive its burden. I learned 
also the many things which the camel is useful 
for ; the Moors made very fine stuffs frorh the 
hair ; the skin gave them good leather ; they 



33 TRaV^ELS in AFRICA. 

ate the flesh, and drank the milk, which are 
both very wholesome ; and even the dung gave 
them firing, when dried. Its food, also, is very 
easily produced. Grass or corn it never wants, 
nor, indeed, are they to be had in such a coun- 
try ; it eats the coarsest weeds and shrubs, 
and prefers the nettle and the thistle to the 
finest pasture. 

" Is not the hand of Providence in this, 
Thomas ?" said his father. " It loves that food 
which is to be had in abundance, and cares 
nothing for that which grows too sparingly to 
satisfy its appetite !" 

" When the Moors," continued Thomas, "are 
about to set out on a journey through the desert, 
they fill with water a number of goat-skins, 
which, after being taken whole from the carcass 
of the animal, they sew up, leaving the neck only 
open. These they sling, by the skin of their 
legs, on each side of the camel ; they next, by 
a girth, which passes under the camel's belly, 
fasten on their baskets for the women and chil- 
dren to ride in ; these are made of camels' skins, 
and fixed in such a manner upon a frame, with 
a wooden rim around the top, that three or four 
can sit in them with great safety, only taking care 
to keep their balance. The men ride on saddles, 
which are placed on the camel's back, just before 
the hump, and fastened on by a girth. 

For a week after our arrival, my companion 
and I were allowed to rest ; at the end of this 
time, we were set to keep sheep and goats. The 
mate, however, soon after left us, being obliged 



TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 33 

to accompany his master, who went on a journey 
northward, nor did we long remain behind. The 
Moors often set out on what they call slaving 
expeditions : that is, after going some distance 
from home, they hide in the neighbourhood of 
some negro town, and carry off any of the inha- 
bitants they can lay their hands on ; and it was 
upon one of these enterprises we set out. We 
were thirty Moors, Williams and myself, and 
we brought with us twelve camels loaded with 
water, barley, and flour. In ten days we 
thought we should reach a place where there 
was water, but the season was uncommonly hot, 
so that when we arrived we found the well- 
quite dry. We were therefore forced to put 
ourselves upon short allowance for the remain- 
ing four days of our journey, which brought us 
to Soudenny. Here we hid ourselves for 
several days, and at length seized a woman and 
three children, whom we found walking in the 
evening near the town." 

" But what kind of a place is it, Tom, where 
the people go out in that way to kidnap each 
other ?" 

" I don't wonder at the question, father ; but 
since it is so, does it not show us how happy we 
are who live in a Christian country, where no 
man, however rich or grand, can hurt even his 
poorest neighbour ? We did not, however, long 
remain concealed. One evening our party was 
surrounded by fifty Negroes, armed with dag- 
gers, and bows and arrows. Our Moors were 
a cowardly set, for, though well armed, they 
3 



34 TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 

scarcely made any resistance. After firing a 
single shot, by which a boy was wounded, we 
were all made prisoners, and carried into the 
town. Here we remained some days previous 
to being sent to Tombuctoo, where the king re- 
sided. The Moors were confined in a spot sur- 
rounded by a mud wall, only six feet high, and 
could have made their escape easily, but they 
appeared to me never to think of it. 

" The village of Soudenny contains about fifty 
houses, built of clay, the roofs being also of clay, 
laid on sticks. How comfortless these savages 
live, thought I, when I saw them ; they have no 
chairs or tables in them, nor any vessels except 
wooden bowls. The better class wear a kind of 
frock of blue nankeen, but neither shoes, hats, 
nor turbans ; the chief has a gold ornament 
worked on the shoulders of his frock ; some had 
gold ear-rings in thbir ears, and also large oval 
rings, which passed through a hole bored in the 
gristly part of the nose, and hung down to the 
mouth. They use bows and arrows, and are very 
expert in hitting a small mark at the distance of 
about twenty yards. 

" While we remained here, I had an opportu- 
nity of seeing a Negro funeral ; it was that of 
the young lad who had been wounded by the 
shot fired by our party. Four men carried the 
body on their shoulders, and laid it in a neigh- 
bouring tent ; it was a pitiful sight to see his poor 
mother walking on before, quite frantic with 
grief, clapping her hands and crying out as she 
went along, ' Good child ! good child ! he never 



TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 35 

told a lie, no, never, never !' and all the people 
that stood by showed their grief by screaming 
and howling. I thought what a lesson this was 
to us, when even these poor ignorant people , 
have such a regard for truth, and how much less 
excusable our sin must be in telling a lie, living 
as we do in a country where we are taught how 
wicked it is, and have plenty of good examples 
before us, if we would but follow them ; but we 
are all more ready to take after the bad than the 
good ; and moreover, I often think, father, that 
we are a great deal more apt to talk of other peo- 
ple's faults than to set about mending our own." 

" All that's true, Tom ; but think, likewise, 
what encouragement it is to children to speak 
truth when they see how the recollection of their 
never having told a lie is such a comfort to their 
parents when they lose them. Think of this 
poor woman, even in all her sorrow, finding re- 
lief in the thought that while her child lived he 
had never told a lie. I am sure, if any of her 
other children were standing by when she said 
it, it must have made them resolve that, for the 
future, nothing should ever tempt them to tell 
any thing contrary to truth. Did you see the 
boy's funeral, or do you know whether they bury 
their dead as we do ?" 

" The young man that I speak of lay in the 
tent all day, and in the dusk of the evening they 
carried him out, dug a grave and laid him in it ; 
they then planted over it a particular kind of 
shrub, from which no stranger is afterward 
allowed to pull a leaf or even to touch it. 



36 TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 

" In about fifteen days we arrived at our desti- 
nation : many of the Moors having been be- 
headed during the journey for attempting to es- 
cape. Here we were presented to the king and 
queen, who sent the surviving Moors to prison, 
but kept my companion and myself in their own 
house, where we were treated with the greatest 
kindness. It was quite plain that they had 
never seen white men before, for they used often 
to sit looking at us for hours together. The 
people also flocked in crowds to stare at us, and 
I afterward heard that many came several days' 
journey for that purpose." 

'• Ay, Thomas, that is just what we do our- 
selves, when a stranger comes among us ; w« 
think ourselves far more sensible than the blacks, 
and yet I recollect once, in Dublin, there was 
a black woman showed — I think they called 
her a Hottentot — and so curious were the peo- 
ple about her that they used to pay money to 
see her." 

" I believe, father, you will find that we do 
many things besides that, which are little better 
than what the Africans do. But to continue ; 
near the town of Tombuctoo, which I should 
tell you is the capital of the country, there flows 
a large river, on which I saw canoes, made of 
fig trees hollowed out, and able to carry about 
three men. The corn grows about six feet 
high, with a bushy head, as large as a pint bot- 
tle ; the grain, however, being small ; this they 
grind between two stones, and having sifted, 
boil it into a thick stirabout ; the natives then 




Africa. 



Hottentot Woman. 



TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 39 

sit upon the ground, men, women, and children, 
around this mess, to which goats' milk has been 
added, and eat it with their fingers ; even the 
king and queen do the same, having neither 
spoons, knives, nor forks. 

" These people have no horses, but they have 
instead a kind of camel which, though unfit for 
carrying loads, is very fleet, and will carry a 
man for days together, at the rate of fifty miles 
a day. It is this animal they use in hunting the 
elephant, which you know is the largest four- 
footed animal in the world. I recollect one 
evening, I was endeavouring, by the help of a 
few words which I picked up, to talk to a Ne- 
gro, when we heard a whistling noise at a dis- 
tance : the Negro immediately gave me to un- 
derstand it was an elephant, and the next morn- 
ing we followed his tracks in pursuit of him, 
mounted on our two camels, and armed only 
with bows and arrows ; the latter were pointed 
with iron, very sharp, and dipped in a black 
liquor prepared from some herb, which is a dead- 
ly poison. I followed till my comrade got within 
three quarters of a mile of his game ; but his 
prodigious size frightened me, for it was the 
first I had ever seen ; he was at least twelve 
feet high, and his legs were as thick as my 
body. The Negro, however, far from being 
frightened, set his camel at full speed, and 
riding past, shot an arrow, which struck the 
animal in the head. The elephant instantly 
started forward to pursue his hunter, dashing 
his trunk against the ground with violence, and 



40 TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 

making a dreadful roaring, which might have 
been heard at a great distance. The c^mel, 
thus followed, ran the faster from fear, so that 
the elephant was soon left behind, and about 
three days after, he was found lying on the 
ground in a dying state, and not very far from 
the place where he had been shot. The Ne- 
groes eat the flesh, which they cut from the 
legs and the hinder parts of the body, with 
great relish ; but I never could like it ; it was 
very coarse grained, and had a strong flavour. 

" The people of Tombuctoo are both stout 
and healthy, for they will lie out in the sun in 
midday, and also sleep without shelter at night, 
though a heavy fog, which comes from the river, 
falls like dew upon the ground. They also grease 
their bodies with butter, which makes the skin 
smooth and shining, but if they neglect it, it will 
grow rough and very ugly. 

" The men all have the marks of a deep cut 
on the forehead reaching down to the nose, from 
which others branch out at each side over the 
eyebrows, into which, while the wound is fresh, 
they put a blue die, which never afterward 
washes out ; but they are very dirty in their 
habits, for sometimes they will not wash 
themselves for fourteen days together. The 
king and queen changed their dress once a 
week." 

" But I hope, Thomas," said Jackson, " you 
never fell into their custom ; cleanliness, I have 
often remarked, shows a cheerful disposition, 
and, says an old proverb, is next to godliness ; 



* TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 41 

however, that, you may say, is going too far ; 
but this much I know, that would we consult 
health or comfort, we would strive, as much as 
possible, to be clean in our cabins and in our 
persons. Water surely is cheap enough, for it 
costs nothing, and it would appear as if Provi- 
dence made it. plentiful to encourage our using 
it freely." 

" That is quite my opinion too,'' said Tom ; 
" I remember being once told that if a man 
meets with an accident, and has no way of 
getting to the doctor, let him only keep the 
wound clean, and cover it up from the air, and 
it will get well in half the time it otherwise 
would ; so I never failed, night and morning, to 
wash in the river. 

" The marriages are very curious ; the only 
form being, that the girl goes to the king's house, 
and stays there until after sunset, when the man 
who is to be her husband goes to fetch her 
away. This is followed by a wedding feast and 
a dance. A man, however, is not confined to 
one wife, he may have several, and the conse- 
quence you may well guess — there is no peace 
at home, the women are always quarrelling and 
fighting, and the husband instead of the afliec- 
tion which he ought to feel, and would feel, if 
he had but one wife, as with us, loves none of 
them. When parents become very old and 
unable to work, their children must support 
them ; but if they are childless, there is a house 
in which they live, four or five in a room, at the 
king's expense." 



42 TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 

" Have they any public diversions, Tom ?" 
asked Jackson. 

" Yes : their favourite one is dancing, and 
this they will often begin two hours before sun- 
set, and continue all night ; this takes place 
once a week, when a hundred or more come 
together. They dance in a circle, usually 
around a fire, and their music is a fife and tam- 
bourine, but every one engaged sings also, as 
loud as he can, so that the noise is almost deaf- 
ening. 

" But to go on with my story ; — during the 
six months that we stayed at Tombuctoo, I and 
my comrade never met with any thing but civi- 
lity and kindness, for they looked on us as 
friends. We had as much food as we wanted, 
and no work ; but the Moors who were taken 
with us were kept in prison the whole time. 
There now, however, came a party of their 
countrymen to ransom them and us, and the 
price they paid was five camels' load of tobacco. 
Accordingly, two days after, we set out and kept 
along the side of the river for ten days, striking 
farther toward the middle parts of Africa." 

" But were you able to tell the course you 
went ?" 

" Yes : you know the sun always rises in the 
east and sets in the west ; so, at least, twice a 
day you know the points of the compass ; but 
also, when the sun is at its height, if you turn 
your back to it, your face will be opposite to the 
north ; and I always gave great heed to this, 
for I never gave up the hope of making my 



TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 43 

escape from the savages. At the end of this 
time we left the river, having first loaded our 
camels with water, and went north for a fort- 
night, travelling about eighteen miles a day. 
This brought us to Tandeny, where we fortu- 
nately found great treasures — not gold, or sil- 
ver, or diamonds, but what is far more precious 
in a country like this, four wells of excellent 
water, and some large ponds of salt water. 
There we stopped a fortnight, to rest the ran- 
somed Moors, who, from long confinement, had 
become very weak ; we also sold one of our 
camels for two sacks of dates and an ass, and 
having loaded the four remaining camels with 
water, we again set out to cross the desert in a 
north-east direction. But how shall I tell you 
all our sufferings ? for nine and twenty days 
we travelled on without meeting a single human 
being ; the whole way being a sandy flat, with- 
out tree, shrub, or grass. After going on for 
about fourteen days, at the rate of eighteen 
miles daily, we began to grow weak ; our stock 
of water ran short, and our provisions were 
nearly exhausted ; our ass died of fatigue, but 
this was a seasonable relief, for we cut it up, 
and laid it on one of the camels, where it dried 
in the sun, and served us for food." 

" And did you like ass's flesh ?" 

" Why, you know a hungry man will not be 
very nice in his choice ; but I recollect I thought 
it as good as goose." 

" Well, but you shortly reached a watering 
place ?" 



44 TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 

" We did, sir," answered Thomas, " at the 
end of six days : but think of our distress when 
we found the well quite dry, owing to the heal 
of the season. At this time we had but eight 
gallons of water remaining ; we were at least 
ten days' distance from a supply ; and upon 
the small quantity we had, twenty-seven per- 
sons, the number of which our party consisted, 
had to live. We were therefore obliged to do 
what is usual in cases of necessity, we mixed 
our eight gallons with camel's urine, and thus 
were enabled to have a pint of liquor a day our- 
selves, and to give a quart daily to each of the 
camels. This, however, was not sufficient for the 
unfortunate Moors, who had been in confinement ; 
in a short time, three of them lay down, unable 
to proceed ; we then placed them on the camels, 
but they could not bear the uneasy motion, so 
they again attempted to walk, but could not. In 
the morning they were found dead in the place 
where they had lain down at night, and we left 
them there, without burial. 

" How many gloomy thoughts came across 
my mind, as we sat out from the spot where 
they were lying. Our party, you would say, 
was a large one, but we were in the midst of a 
great, and to me it seemed an endless desert, 
as far as our sight extended, and there was no- 
thing to prevent the view, nothing but sand and 
sky, and it made me think we were but a little 
speck in the creation. We said but little to 
each other, we felt as if we were alone ; and 
if I had not put my trust in Him who is mer- 



TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 45 

ciful, I should have given myself up to despair. 
The next day another Moor lay down, and, 
like his companions, perished. On the follow- 
ing day a Moor remained behind, in hopes that 
he who had dropped the day before might still 
come up and be able to join the party. At this 
time it was believed, what was found to be the 
fact, we were within a day's march of the town 
to which we were proceeding ; but neither of 
the Moors ever afterward made his appearance, 
and I have no doubt they perished. 

" The first fortnight we were allowed to rest 
from our fatigues ; but as soon as we had gain- 
ed a little strength, we were, as before, set to 
take care of goats and sheep. We could now 
talk a little Moorish, and we frequently begged 
our masters to bring us to Serena, where we 
hoped to be ransomed by Europeans ; this they 
promised to do if we were attentive, but, at the 
end of eleven months, having waited patiently 
all that time, we found there was no ap- 
pearance of it, so we spoke to them again, and 
were then given to understand, that, as they 
had been disappointed of getting slaves, in 
some of their late expeditions, they were deter- 
mined to keep us. All this time we were suf- 
fering severely, exposed during the day to a 
scorching sun, almost in a state of nakedness : 
our food, however, though very plain, was in 
abundance, for we had plenty of barley flour and 
goats' milk. I now seriously entertained the 
design of attempting my escape ; and, accord- 
ingly, the next time I was sent with a camel to 



46 TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 

the well to draw water, instead of returning, I 
pushed on to reach a place called Wednoon, 
which I had been told was the name of the 
next town, and lay toward the north, in the di- 
rection of Mogadore, a town on the north-west 
coast of Africa, where I had heard there were 
English merchants living. I travelled the whole 
of that day, and would have continued to go on 
during the night, but the camel had been used 
to rest at night, and he refused to proceed. I 
used blows and entreaties, but all to no purpose ; 
he lay down in the sand, and I was obliged to 
submit, expecting every moment to see my mas- 
ter's approach, who of course would use me 
with tenfold cruelty for attempting to escape ; 
besides, I was alone in the midst of a desert, I 
had no track to guide me, and even though I 
should proceed, I could not tell whether the 
course I had taken would lead me to a town or 
not. Fatigued, hungry, and almost despairing, 
I tied the camel's fore foot close to his body, 
with the rope which fastened on the saddle, (the 
usual way of preventing these animals from 
straying far,) and lay down beside him. But 
never shall I forget the check I received for 
my mistrust in Providence. Looking upon the 
ground, I saw a small plant git) wing in such 
beauty, as to engage my attention for some time, 
during which I almost forgot my own situation. 
Does not the Almighty, thought I, who planted, 
watered, and has made to grow in this remote 
part of the world, a thing of such small value, 
look with compassion upon the sufferings of his 



TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 47 

own creatures ? and may I not hope, if it is his 
will, to pass unhurt through even greater dan- 
gers than any that have yet happened to me ? 
Perhaps such a thought will seem to you more 
than might be expected from one who had, till 
the time he left home, thought but little of God. 
I had been giddy, but all I had gone through, 
and the belief that I could never escape from 
slavery, unless by steadiness and exertion, had 
made me thoughtful : however, it was the sight 
of that little plant that revived me when almost 
in despair. 

" The next morning, at daybreak, I started 
up, mounted the camel once more, and at nine 
o'clock saw at a little distance the smoke of a 
village ; and, soon after, about a hundred Moors, 
who, with their faces turned to the east, as is 
their custom, were engaged in prayer. I thought 
myself safe, and had just inquired the way to 
the governor's house, when, looking behind me, 
I saw two camels coming up, and on one of 
them my master, who with a friend had set out 
in chase of me, and now claimed me as his 
slave. I now resolved that, come what would, 
I would never go back with him. We were 
accordingly brought before the chief, whose 
name was Mohammed, and who, having heard 
from me that my master had broken his promise 
of taking me to Mogadore, where I knew I 
should be released — which, indeed, to do him 
justice, he did not deny — decided in my favour, 
and told my master that he must resign me to 
him, at the price of a camel and a bushel of 



48 TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 

dates. My master loudly complained, but when 
he was told that if he refused he should get 
nothing, he at last consented, and made me over 
to him. 

" The people of this place, which is called 
El Kabla, and lies still nearer the sea, advan- 
cing from Tombuctoo in a north-west direction, 
were better clothed and not so savage as those 
I had left. I was now set to tend camels, but 
in a fortnight after I was employed in taking 
care of goats. My work was light, and as I got 
nothing but kind treatment, my time passed 
pleasantly enough. At the end of six months, 
my master agreed to part with me, for about 
ten pounds' worth of blankets and dates, and I 
now became the property of a trader, who be- 
longed to a village nearer the sea. It was a 
great way off, and the desert, I supposed, w^as 
again to be crossed before we could reach it ; 
but I thought little of that, since it would bring 
me many days' journey nearer to the place 
where I might hope to be set free, or, at the 
worst, attempt to make, my escape. The day 
after the bargain was made, I set out with a 
party of six men and four camels for a place 
called Woled, a village lying to the north-west, 
where we arrived after travelling for nine days, 
at the rate of about eighteen miles daily. On 
the road we met neither houses nor human be- 
ings ; but the ground, contrary to my expecta- 
tion, was covered with grass and shrubs. At 
Woled we found about fifty tents ; and it was 
then that I was encouraged in the hope of 



TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 49 

being released from slavery. Shortly after our 
arrival, a Moor told my master that it was usual 
for the British consul at Mogadore to send to 
Wednoon, where this Moor lived, to purchase 
the Christians who were prisoners in the coun- 
try ; he therefore offered my master, as he was 
about to go there himself, to take me with him, 
in order to sell me for his account. This was 
agreed to, and in a few days I was advancing 
nearer and nearer, as I thought, to liberty. 

" We went at a brisk rate, for we had each a 
camel, and in nine days came to Mouessa. 
This was by far the largest place I had seen, 
where there were no houses, for there were not 
less than one hundred tents ; and here I was, 
as usual, set to tend camels ; time was heavy 
on my hands, and I saw no preparations for our 
going to Wednoon. I heard there were ether 
Christians there ; and as it was the place where 
I might hope to get free, it will not surprise 
you, that after I had made inquiry into the 
course I was to follow, and the distance, I one 
evening set out on foot and alone, determined 
to desert. I had a very small quantity of goat's 
flesh with me, but I relied on getting a supply 
at some of the villages which I had heard were 
on the road. I had been very careful not to 
raise a suspicion of my design ; and whenever 
I made any inquiries concerning Wednoon, had 
endeavoured to do it without observation. — ■ 
But in this I was disappointed. When my 
master missed me, he found several who now 
called to mind that I had often asked questions 
4 



50 TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 

respecting Wednoon, and he accordingly sent 
three men, mounted, to pursue me. I had tra- 
velled all night, and until about noon the next 
day, when they overtook me. I expected to be 
severely handled for my attempt, but they con- 
tented themselves with bringing me back to 
Mouessa ; from whence, in a very short time 
after, Abdallah, my master's friend, and I set 
out, well mounted, and after travelling for five 
days, reached Wednoon, the place I had so long 
desired to see. How providential was it that 
I had been overtaken ! for the whole time that 
we were on the road, we did not find a sisgle 
house ; so that had I gone on, as it was my 
design, I must have perished with hunger. 

" Wednoon is a small town, consisting of about 
forty houses and some tents. The former are 
built chiefly of clay and stone, and several have 
a story above the ground floor. The ground 
was better tilled also than any I had seen in 
Africa, and produced plenty of corn and tobacco , 
there were also date and fig trees, grapes, apples, 
pears, and pomegranates. But think how great 
was my satisfaction to meet in the Christians 
whom I found there my old shipmates, who 
had been wrecked with me near Cape Blanco ! 
They told me that they had been for some 
months in Wednoon, and were the property of 
the governor's son. 

" Soon after our arrival, iVbdallah offered me 
for sale to the chief, but the price could not be 
agreed on ; so I was sold to Bel Cession for 
seventy dollars' worth of blankets, gunpowder. 



TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 51 

and dates. The only other white man at Wed- 
noon was a Frenchman, who told me he had 
been wrecked on the neighbouring coast twelve 
' years before ; he had turned Mohammedan, 
and now lived in the country, with a wife and 
child and slaves, and gained a good living by 
making and selling gunpowder." 

" Do you mean by that, Tom, that he had 
denied his religion ?" 

'* Yes, father ; the Moors are great bigots, 
and think that we are infidels, because we don't 
believe the same that they do. We also think 
them pagans ; and how pleasing it * is to know 
that we are in the right. When a Christian is 
made prisoner by them and sold as a slave, they 
generally do all they can by cruelty and bad 
treatment of every kind to make him turn, in 
order, by this means, to escape persecution ; 
and as the consequence of becoming a Moham- 
medan is, that the person becomes immediately 
free, it too often happens that some among their 
captives do not resist the temptation ; but when 
once they change their religion they can never 
leave the country ; they must make up their 
minds to live and die there, for if caught making 
their escape, they would be put to death. In- 
deed, when I was in Barbary, some months 
after this, I heard of the master of a vessel, who, 
for some cause, having been condemned to 
death by the bashaw of Tripoli, thought to save 
his life by renouncing his religion. Instead, 
however, of being set free, as he expected, the 
governor only wished him joy that he was now 



52 TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 

one of what he called the true faith, and gave 
orders that he should be immediately executed. 
The Frenchman whom I speak of had gone 
very early to sea ; his parents, he told me him- 
self, had never taken any pains to teach him his 
duty to God, and you see what was the conse- 
quence." 

" Ay, Tom, if we would hold fast by reli- 
gion, God would not desert us in this world, 
and we should be eternally happy in the next." 

" The work in which I was here employed 
was building walls, making up fences, and 
working in the corn fields and in the tobacco 
plantations, of which there are a great many near 
the town. On the Moors' Sabbath we were 
not asked to work, and it was then my com- 
panions in slavery and I used to talk together : 
they had met with many adventures since we 
had parted, having been carried different ways ; 
and in telling them to each other we passed 
away many an hour." 

" Do you recollect any of what they told you, 
Tom? I think their stories must have been 
worth hearing." 

" With one exception, they were pretty nearly 
the same as my own. They had passed as 
slaves from one hand to another ; they had tra- 
velled over different parts of the dreary desert ; 
they had often been near perishing for want of 
water when they failed to light upon the parti- 
cular spot where the wells are situated, a mis- 
take not at all unlikely to happen when you 
consider that they had no path or road to fol- 



TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 53 

low ; for, just like a ship at sea, their going 
over it leaves no track. My fellow-slaves, then, 
had met with some kindness and some cruelty ; 
but there was, as I have said, one exception to 
it. Phil. Adams was a strong large man at the 
time of the wreck, but when I saw him first at 
Wednoon he was worn away to a shadow, by 
fatigue and severe treatment, and but for having 
been sold to the governor's son, who behaved 
to his people with the greatest humanity, he 
must have died. I am afraid I cannot recol- 
lect all his story, but what I do remember I 
shall try to give in his own words. 

" ' When the fight was over about the plunder 
of our ship, you remember,' said he to me, * the 
stronger party divided us among them. I was 
given over to two old women, who pushed me 
on, naked and barefoot as I was, with sticks, 
till I came up with the remainder of their party, 
which was at some distance : here I was cruelly 
used. When I wished for a drink, they made 
me kneel down, and put my head into the well, 
like a camel ; and when the party set forward, 
they all rode, except myself. I had to drive on 
the camels, and keep them together, while the 
sand through which I walked was so deep that 
at every step I sank up to my knees. I thought 
I must have died, the Moors laughing at my 
distress, and whipping me on the naked back 
whenever I stopped to take rest. At length 
they made me mount a camel, and sit behind 
the hump, to which I was obliged to cling by 
grasping its long hair with both hands. The 



54 TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 

heavy motion was to me not unlike that of a 
small boat in a heavy sea, and its hide was so 
rough as to take off . the skin from my naked 
thighs and legs, so that the blood trickled down 
in large drops. When I think of all I endured, 
it makes me tremble ; but I never forgot that 
my life was in the hand of God, and that the 
Judge of all the earth would do right. 

'' 'At this rate we continued going until about 
midnight, when we entered a small valley, and 
stopped to rest the camels ; it seemed the longest 
and most dismal night I ever passed, for I was 
in too much pain to sleep. The next day, after 
the same sufferings, we arrived at the head 
quarters of the tribe ; and here, seeing the 
miserable state I was in, they indulged me with 
a covering to sleep under at night. A council 
was immediately held, at which about one hun- 
dred and fifty men were present ; they talked 
over the matter for a long time, seated on the 
ground, with their legs crossed under them, as a 
tailor sits at work, and in circles of from ten to 
twenty each. One of the old men then addressed 
me ; he seemed very intelligent, and though he 
spoke a language I did not understand, we con- 
trived, by the help of signs, to converse tolerably 
well. He asked me what country I belonged 
to. I told him I was English. He then wanted 
to know how we had come over the sea. I 
made somethingto resemble a sea coast by heap- 
ing up sand, and forming the shape of a vessel, 
into which I stuck some sticks, by way of masts, 
and a bowsprit, and gave him to understand we 



TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 55 

had been in a large vessel, and wrecked on the 
coast by a strong wind : then, by tearing down 
the masts, and covering up the form of the vessel 
with sand, I signified to him that she had been 
totally lost. Thirty or forty Moors were sitting 
around us, assisting the old man to understand 
me. They asked me if I knew any thing about 
Marocksh. This sounded something like Mo- 
rocco. I answered, Yes. Next, of the sooltaan ; 
to which I made signs of assent. I also gave 
them to understand that I knew him, had seen 
him with my eyes ; and that he was a friend to 
me and my nation ; and if they would carry me 
to his country, I should get money to pay them 
for my liberty. They shook their heads ; it was 
a great distance, and nothing for camels to eat 
or drink on the way. The conference over, I 
was given to a Moor named Buheri, ,who brought 
me to his tent, and made me lie down, like a 
camel, on the ground. I had eaten nothing that 
day, but at night he brought me a quart of 
camel's milk, mixed with water ; how delicious 
I thought it ! for sorrow teaches us to value the 
plenty we have at home. That night I slept 
soundly, for I was quite worn out with hunger, 
fatigue, and pain. 

" ' At day-light the next day my new master 
ordered me to drive forward the camels : this 
I did for about an hour, but my feet were so 
much swelled and cut by the stones, for I had 
never before been used to walk barefoot, that at 
every step I could not help stooping and crouch- 
ing down nearly to the ground. Seeing this, 



56 TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 

he Stopped the drove, and spreading a piece of 
blanket behind the camel's hump on which he 
himself was riding, he made me mount behind 
him. At night we reached his tents, and found 
there his wives and children. Two days' rest, 
which I had here, revived me much ; but I was 
forced to sleep in the open air, his family driving 
me away with blows, whenever I crept under a 
corner of their tent. We then set forward for 
a long journey, as was plain by the preparations 
they made for it. The face of the country now 
changed — it was a sandy plain, as level as a 
lake, with here and there a few thorny bushes, 
on which the camels fed ; these, how^ever, be- 
came more scanty, and consequently the camels 
gave less milk. The provisions with which we 
had set out, next failed, so that we were soon 
reduced to great straits. In every valley we 
came to the natives would run about under 
every thorn-bush, in hopes of finding some herb, 
for they were nearly as hungry as myself. In 
some places a small plant was found, which 
they tore up and devoured in an instant. I got 
one or two, but they were very bitter and salt. 
There was also found by the natives, in particu- 
lar plains, a small round root, whose top showed 
itself like a single short spear of grass ; they 
dug it up with a stick ; it was of the size of a 
walnut, and in shape very like an onion ; its 
taste fresh, without any strong flavour ; but it 
was very difficult to find, and was so scarce as 
to give us but little relief. Some days we found 
a few dwarf thorn-bushes, not more than two 



TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 57 

feet high ; on these we met with some snails, 
most of which were dead and dry, but I some- 
times got about a handful alive, and used to 
roast and eat them with great delight. 

'* * On one evening, I had an opportunity of 
observing their devotions. My master, I dis- 
covered was a kind of priest, for he was joined 
by all who happened to be near his tent. The 
ceremony was as follows : — They washed them- 
selves first with sand, not having any water ; 
then wrapping themselves up in their cloaks, 
and turning their faces toward the east, my 
master stepped out before them, and commenced 
by bowing twice, repeating at each time, " Allah," 
(the name for God in their language ;) then 
kneeling, and bowing his head twice, he raised 
himself upon his feet, and repeated a long sen- 
tence. He was always accompanied in his mo- 
tions and words by all present, who could see 
him distinctly, as he stood before them. He 
then made a long prayer, and repeated what I 
supposed to be an exhortation like our sermon, 
and then all joined in singing some hymn for a 
considerable time. This ceremony being ended 
they again bowed themselves, with their faces 
to the earth, and the service concluded.' 

" But I must shorten this story of Phil. Adams, 
father, for I have still a great deal to tell you. 
It was about this time that two strangers arrived 
at his master's tent, riding two camels, loaded 
with goods ; the forms they go through on such 
occasions are curious. When these travelling 
merchants come to a camp of Moors, they stop 



58 TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 

opposite to the tents, and making their camels 
lie down, seat themselves on the ground, with 
their faces turned the other way. If the men 
are abroad, the women go out to them with 
water, and a roll of tent cloth, to make them a 
shelter. In the case I mention, the strangers 
rose as the women drew near, and saluted them 
with the usual expression. Peace be with you, 
which was returned by the women, who imme- 
diately pitched a tent on the spot where they 
were sitting. They then took the bundles and 
the camels' harness, with every thing belonging 
to the strangers, and placed them in this tent. 
The forms of hospitality being thus attended to, 
the women seated themselves on the ground, 
beside their guests, asked them whence they 
came, what goods they had got, how long they 
had been on their journey, &c. You see from 
this, father, that these people, savage as they 
are, have some good among them. What can 
be kinder than such a welcome to those whom 
perhaps they never saw before, and may never 
meet again. The arrival of these two mer- 
chants was a lucky thing for Adams ; they 
bought him from his master, in the expectation 
of making money by bringing him to Wednoon, 
where they knew there was a good chance of his 
being purchased by some European agent. ' No 
one could have been more particular,' said 
Adams, ' than they were in endeavouring, as 
well as they could, to inquire of me whether 
^hey were likely to gain by their purchase. 
They taught me to count in Arabic on my fin- 



TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 59 

gers, up to twenty-six, and then asked me did 
I think I would bring two hundred dollars ; at 
the same time they showed me a dollar, in or- 
der to be sure that we understood each other. 
I told them, in reply, that I did not doubt, if 
they carried me to a place where there was an 
English consul, they would receive that sum.' 

" Some days after they set out, they reached 
a place where it was expected a spring would 
be found ; and it shows how well these people 
must be acquainted with the desert, that though 
Adams, on his arrival at the very spot, could 
see no sign of water, in less than an hour they 
had found it ; it was covered with large rocks, 
about twenty feet high, excepting a narrow, 
crooked passage, by which a man could go 
down to it ; it contained about twenty gallons 
of clear sweet water, and there the whole party 
supplied themselves, for as fast as they emptied 
the well, more flowed in from another spring. 
There, Adams told me, he had an opportunity 
of judging how much a camel can drink at a 
single draught ; he filled a goat skin, which 
held about four gallons, fifteen times, and all 
this was drunk by an old camel belonging to 
his master ; it should be mentioned, however, 
that it had not drunk any thing for twenty days 
before. How kind is Providence to place such 
a supply in the midst of a dreary solitary waste ! 

" It shows, also, how well accustomed these 
merchants are to travel the desert, that, like 
seamen, who can see a vessel when no one else 
would think it in sight, they can distinguish a 



60 TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 

camel at an amazing distance. One day, Adams's 
master came up to him suddenly to say he saw 
a camel, but no one else of the party perceived 
any thing of the kind for two hours after ; at 
length all saw a camel appearing like a speck in 
the distance, but they did not reach the travel- 
lers, who were with a large drove of camels, till 
five hours after. Going on for some hours, they 
found an Arab asleep on the sand, his two 
camels remaining beside him. There were large 
sacks lying on the ground, near the sleeping 
Arab, one of which Adams's master carried off 
without any ceremony ; it was filled with bar- 
ley meal, and had it been honestly come by, 
would have been delicious. In half an hour 
after the owner came running after the party, 
hallooing to them to stop, but they pushed on 
the camels the faster : what followed was ex- 
traordinary — ^he gained upon them fast, and 
when within hearing, made his appeal to them, 
saying that he had lost part of his property, and 
knew they must have taken it : that he was 
their brother, and would rather die than commit 
such a bad action. ' You have fire arms,' said 
he, * and I have but a sword ; you believe you 
can kill me in an instant, but the God of justice 
is my shield, and will protect the innocent : I 
do not fear you.' Adams's master upon this 
told the Arab to leave his sword behind him, 
and to approach without fear. Upon this he 
came forward, and asked, ^ Is it peace V ' It 
is.' ' Peace be to you — peace be to all your 
house, to all your friends ;' and immediately all 



TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 61 

seated themselves in a circle on the ground, 
shaking hands in the most cordial manner. 
* You would not have refused us a morsel, had 
you been awake,' said Adams's master, 'for we 
were in a state of starvation :' the conclusiori 
was, that all the property taken was restored, 
with the exception of the meal which had been 
used ; and both sides parted perfect friends." 

" Their notions of honesty can't be strict," 
said farmer Jackson, " if they think that hunger 
is an excuse for robbery." 

" That's true," said Tom ; " but I suppose 
Adams's master thought it a hard thing to be 
dying of hunger, when there was plenty lying 
before him." 

" It is all true, Tom ; but what kind of an 
excuse is that in the sight of Him who is of 
purer eyes than to behold iniquity ?" 

" This was the principal part of what I heard 
from Adams ; for in a short time after he ar- 
rived in Wednoon. It was in telling anecdotes 
to each other in this way that we spent many 
an hour. Many plans also for gaining our 
liberty were talked over ; but we were too close- 
ly guarded to think of making our escape ; and 
besides, the distance to Mogadore, where there 
was an English merchant living, took away 
every hope that we could reach it on foot. We, 
therefore, resolved to make our case known to 
our countryman by letter ; and, in order to per- 
suade our masters to send to Wednoon, we told 
them that they would receive, most probably, a 
very large sum for our ransom. On this occa- 



62 TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 

sion I was the scribe, and, indeed, I made our 
request as strong as possible, praying him to 
send some one with power to purchase our 
liberty, and that our countrymen at home would 
surely pay him whatever sum he gave. A long 
time, however, passed before we got an answer, 
so that all but myself began to despair. I was 
not so fortunate in a master as my companions, 
for he treated me with great cruelty ; and in- 
deed I have since thought it was from a wish 
to force me to change my religion, that he act- 
ed so. Thank God, I never would consent. 
My comrades, however, were not so steady, 
and bitterly they repented of it ; as I told you, 
the moment they became Mohammedans, they 
were free ; each was presented with a horse, a 
musket, a blanket, and allowed to take a Moor- 
ish wife. Think what they must have felt, 
when three days after they had renounced their 
religion, a letter came from the English mer- 
chant at Mogadore, addressed to the Chris- 
tian prisoners at Wednoon, exhorting us to re- 
sist all attempts to make us give up our religion, 
and assuring us that within a month we should 
be set at liberty. Two of them heard the letter 
read without being fhuch affected, but poor 
Adams became so moved that he let it drop out 
of his hands, and burst into tears. 

" In about a month the man who brought us 
the answer, in the disguise of a trader, though 
in fact he was a servant of our humane country- 
man, told me he had succeeded in procuring 
my release ; and the next day, after taking a 



TRAVELS IN AFillCA. 63 

sorrowful farewell of my companions, who ap- 
peared doomed to end their days among these 
Moors, we set out for Mogadore. How shall I 
speak the joy I felt when I exchanged the jolt- 
ing step of the camel for the easy step of the 
mule, which my deliverer sent out to meet me ? 
It seemed to me a pledge that I was to be 
no longer a slave to the cruel Moors. The back 
of this animal, when about to commence a jour- 
ney, is covered with a large saddle, too broad 
for a man to bestride, and reaching almost from 
the head to the tail ; over this they place a 
strong matting, from which hang, on each side, 
two baskets, something like the turf panniers 
which horses carry in our neighbourhood. In 
these they put their provisions, merchandise, 
and clothing, when on a journey. The rider 
sits sidewise on the saddle, above the panniers, 
and rides extremely easy, the mule's gait being 
a fast ambling walk, which gives very little mo- 
tion. Indeed, so pleasant did I find it, that I 
fell fast asleep, and got an ugly fall. 

" Our road now lay through a beautiful and 
fertile country : in one part we passed through 
a fertile valley, the steep hills on each side be- 
ing covered with gardens, which rose one above 
the other. I suppose the rain would have 
washed all the soil down, if each garden was 
not kept on a level by means of stone walls, 
which were filled with rich mould ; they were 
well stocked with all kinds of kitchen vegeta- 
bles, fig and date trees, and vines, which were 
reared up the side of each wall, and with melons : 



64 TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 

gutters were curiously placed around these 
gardens, by which the owner could convey wa- 
ter to any part he pleased. At another time 
we saw a number of smair towns, handsomely 
enclosed with high stone walls ; the land on 
the plain was fenced off into separate fields 
by rough stone walls, made with great labour. 
Numerous flocks of goats were feeding on oil 
nuts, and herds of camels, asses, and horses, 
were grazing. We met, also, at different dis- 
tances, large droves of camels, mules, and 
asses, laden with salt and other merchandise, 
and driven by a number of Moors ; these had 
each, beside his haick, which is a large piece 
of woollen cloth resembling a blanket, a close 
jacket next his skin ; they wore turbans on 
their heads, and were armed with daggers and 
crooked swords, hanging from their necks by 
red woollen cord. The point of the dagger 
points inward, like a pruning knife, so that, 
holding it with the lower part of the hand next 
the blade, they give what we call a backhand- 
ed stroke, ripping open whatever part of the 
body they strike. 

" Our way next led us through a province 
which had been laid waste by locusts, so that 
we could procure neither grass nor barley for 
our horses. These animals are, you know, 
mentioned in Scripture, and are, indeed, a 
scourge in these hot climates. Sometimes, I 
was told, they fly in such swarms as to look 
like a black cloud in the air ; and when they 
alight, so completely do they cover the ground 



TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 65 

that it is made to appear alive ; it is not surpris- 
ing, therefore, that in a few minutes, e very- 
blade of grass, every leaf on the trees, and, in 
short, every green thing, should disappear com- 
pletely, and the whole country, though in the' 
midst of summer, becomes as naked as if it was 
the depth of winter. 

" We next came to a celebrated salt spring, 
vi^hich supplies the entire country with that 
valuable commodity. The water runs from 
the side of a hill into a number of shallow 
earthen pans ; where the heat of the sun soon 
dries it up, leaving a crust of salt at the bottom. 
It will give you some idea of the trade which 
is carried on in salt to say that there were not 
less than five hundred beasts of burden waiting 
at that time for loads. 

" It was during our journey to the place 
where I expected to gain my liberty, that my 
guide told me of the hardships sometimes en- 
dured by the caravans which cross the desert. 
You have already heard what I suffered ; but 
what he related to me was so extraordinary, 
that I don't think I have forgotten a single 
word. 

" When the caravan of which he formed one 
set out, there were not less than one thousand 
men and four thousand camels, and it is an ex- 
traordinary kind of provision they carry for the 
camels on this journey. There is a sort of 
olive called the Argan olive, which grows in 
Africa ; these the natives gather, and after press- 
ino^ the oil out of them so as to leave them quite 
5 



^6 TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 

dry, they bake them until they are hard, and 
black as coals ; so that some travellers, who 
were igiiorant of this custom, have actually 
thought, on seeing them, that the camels were 
eating coals. 

" For the first fifteen days they travelled over 
a level tract of country, where the ground was 
so hard that not even the track of a camel's foot 
could be seen on it. In one spot there were a few 
shrubs which the camels liked of all things to 
eat of, for, as all the wells they passed by were 
dry, we may suppose how much they relish a 
bit of green food after living day after day upon 
the dry substance that was provided for them. 
Think what a relief it was to the poor crea- 
tures when, after travelling in this way for a 
fortnight, they came to a fine deep valley, in 
which they found twenty wells ; however, there 
were only six that had water in them, but these 
six supplied them with enough to fill the bags, 
made of skin, which they carry with them 
for that purpose. In three days more, they 
came to drifts of very fine loose sand, among 
which they travelled nearly a week, when there 
suddenly began to blow a fierce wind from the 
south-east ; this dreadful wind sometimes blows 
in these deserts, and is called the simoom; 
they could neither advance nor retreat, so they 
had nothing for it but to take the loading off 
the camels, and pile it in one groat heap, and 
to make the camels lie down. The dust, or 
sand, flew so thick that they could not see each 
other nor their camels, and were scarcely able 



. TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 67 

to breathe ; so they lay down with their faces 
to the ground, and prayed to Almighty God to 
spare their lives. For two days the wind blew 
in this dreadful way, and the sand drifted in 
such a heap on them that they were obliged 
to move themselves now and then when it be- 
came so heavy upon them as almost to suffo- 
cate them. It pleased God that many of their 
lives should be spared ; the wind fell, and they 
ventured to crawl out from beneath the sand 
which had almost covered them ; but when 
they began to count their numbers, after they 
had got up, full three hundred were missing ; 
they had been stifled in the sand, and were 
never seen more. All those that survived knelt 
down, and returned thanks to God for their mer- 
ciful deliverance ; — they then set about digging 
the unfortunate camels out of the sand, of which 
two hundred were found dead : this, and re- 
loading those that were able for the journey, 
took them nearly two days ; and after giving the 
poor animals some drink from the skin bags of 
water they carried with them, and feeding them 
on the dried Argan olive, they once more set 
forward on their journey. 

"There was nothing green to be seen as 
they travelled along. For twenty-four days 
they kept on, as fast as they could, through 
the dry hot sand, so deep that they sank in it 
at every step ; not a bush nor an herb' was to be 
seen, and the camels were dying fast. Both 
men and animals were sorely distressed with 
all their sufferings. The principal man in the 



r 
68 TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 

caravan at length proposed that three hundred 
of the camels should be killed, to supply food 
for the men ; but this was. an unfortunate piece 
of advice ; for just as they were going to put it 
in execution, a dreadful dispute arose among 
the owners ; some would not let theirs be kill- 
ed, while others proceeded to seize on them by 
force ; at length they came to open battle ; the 
man who first proposed it was put to death in a 
moment ; and so furious was the combat that 
between two and three hundred were killed on 
that day." 

" And, Tom, did they succeed in killing the 
camels, after all ?" 

" Nothing that's done in a riot ever comes to 
good : there were more camels destroyed in the 
fray than would have been killed if the people 
had been peaceable ; there were not less than 
five hundred put to death, and during the 
night two of the men set off with thirty-two 
camels, and upward of twenty of their own 
friends ; and the remainder of the camels died 
so fast from want of water, and hardship of 
every kind, that in twelve days afterward, out 
of the four thousand that had set out, there 
were but eighteen left alive. At this time the 
rain set in, and fell in torrents, and they reach- 
ed a small Negro village built on the borders of 
the desert. The people flocked around them 
when they arrived, and treated them with great 
kindness when they heard of all their sufferings, 
and saw them come unarmed. Those are a 
peaceable, harmless people, who live in their 



TRAVELS Ix\ AFRICA. 69 

own little towns, which they enclosed with fences 
made of strong reeds, and covered with clay. 
The travellers stopped a few weeks here, hop- 
ing that some of those they had left behind for 
dead might perhaps yet arrive, but not one of/ 
them ever made his appearance. 

"But to go on with my own story. We had 
been now three days and nights almost con- 
stantly travelling from Wednoon to Mogadore, 
when at length my guide called out to me, 
* Keep up your spirits only a few hours longer, 
and you will be in Mogadore, if the Almighty 
please.' This was at eight o'clock in the 
morning ; at eleven we were mounting a sand 
hill, over which our path lay, when suddenly 
the harbour of Mogadore broke upon my view. 
I earnestly and devoutly returned thanks to Pro- 
vidence for my deliverance ; but what was my 
joy, as I drew nearer, to see a vessel riding at 
anchor, with English colours flying ! My heart 
beat with violence, and it seemed to me as if I 
had begun a new life. My generous deliverer 
also came out to meet me, and appeared so 
happy that a stranger would have thought that 
he, and not I, was the person ransomed from 
slavery. In his house I remained for two 
months, and received from him such kindness 
as restored me to health. I had also the oppor- 
tunity of returning to Europe in the English 
vessel, but I don't know why, I preferred ram- 
bling a little longer. I had an offer to stay in 
Mogadore, but at the same time a gentleman of 
the .name of Wilson proposed to me to becoii>e 



70 TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 

his servant. He v^as a man of large fortune, 
and from a wish to do good to his fellow-crea- 
tures, at the same time that he gratified his own 
thirst for knowledge, he had left all the comforts 
of home, with the design of travelling over every 
part of Africa ; the wages he was to give me 
were handsome, and he also promised to make 
every thing as comfortable as possible. ' I 
shall have,' said he, 'to endure much myself, 
and I hope you will not think much of suffering 
hardship when you see your master no better 
off than yourself.' 

" Accordingly, every thing being agreed on, 
we set out in a few weeks to travel around by 
Morocco, and the Barbary states which skirt the 
Mediterranean, to Egypt. But I should first 
explain to you, that Africa, which you know is 
one quarter of the world, is almost surrounded 
with water. On the north runs the Mediterra- 
nean Sea, on the shores of which we were 
now going to travel ; on the west the great 
Atlantic Ocean washes the whole side, from 
the Straits of Gibraltar to the Cape of Good 
Hope, a stretch of above five thousand miles ; 
on the east lie the great Indian Ocean, the 
Red Sea, and the small gut of land called the 
Isthmus of Suez, which is about fifty-six miles 
in length, and joins Africa to Arabia in Asia. 
When I have told you all my adventures, for I 
have had the good fortune to visit almost every 
part of this region, you will understand better 
what I mean by comparing it to a cloak of 
frieze bordered with gold lace ; the frieze repre- 



TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 71 

senting the middle parts, of which very little is 
yet known, as I have told you, and the laced 
border being the parts which the natives inhabit, 
and which we know by the accounts of various 
travellers. In the middle, also, lies that great 
desert which I have already mentioned, and' 
which but for the camel would be quite impas- 
sable. Having set out from Mogadore, on our 
journey northward, we passed through a rich 
and fertile country, in which they grow wheat, 
barley, and maize, and most kinds of kitchen- 
garden vegetables ; various kinds of fruit trees 
also, as the date, the fig, the pomegranate, the 
orange, the olive, and the almond, all which 
yield great abundance in their seasons : they 
have also great numbers of camels, horses, asses, 
mules, oxen, goats, and sheep, so that you 
might suppose, with such plenty, they are the 
happiest people on the earth ; it is not sO, how- 
ever ; they are ignorant, and ignorance is the 
parent of every vice ; and they are subjects of 
a king who is a despotic tyrant : and often, on 
the slightest cause, will take not only their pro- 
perty, but life. Indeed, if a man makes a little 
money by industry, he strives to conceal it, for 
he knows, if it come to the governor's know- 
ledge, he will take it from him by force. 
How different, thought I, from our country, in 
which there is the same law for all conditions. 
The Moors are stout-built, and well-sized ; their 
colour is tawny ; their dress is a kind of shirt, 
without sleeves, made of linen or muslin, over 
which they wear a woollen blanket, called a 



72 TRAVELS Ix\ AFRICA. ^ 

haick, which I mentioned before. The men 
shave their heads smooth, and wear turbans. 
The women live in strict privacy ; in the streets 
they are seldom seen, and then so completely 
covered that they commonly peep out of a hole 
left in the front, with one eye ; and they are so 
very fat that they waddle in a most strange 
manner : indeed, no Moorish lady has any 
claim to beauty, unless she is so fat as to be 
almost unwieldy. It was in a place called 
Tangier, that, some years ago, an English doc- 
tor had been sent for to cure the emperor's son, 
with a promise of a great reward if he succeed- 
ed : he was called in, at the same time, to se- 
veral Moorish ladies of high rank, but it was 
with great difficulty he could see his patients. 
The first to whom he was admitted had a cur- 
tain drawn quite across the room, through a hole 
in which she put out her hand, in order that her 
pulse might be felt. The doctor, anxious to 
see his patient, told her it was quite necessary 
he should look at her tongue ; upon which, a 
slit was made in the curtain, that she might put 
her tongue out, without suffering any other part 
to be seen. Indeed, he met with the same re- 
serve in all until they found that if they wanted 
his advice, they must show themselves openly. 
" Fez is the capital of Morocco, and the place 
where the emperor resides : like all other 
Moorish towns, it has no bells in the places of 
worship, but there are high steeples, to the top 
of which their priests mount, at stated times, 
to call the people to prayers. I was always 



TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 73 

awakened by them in the morning, and their call 
used to remind me of my duty also." 

" Were you ever, Tom, in one of their Moor- 
ish chapels ?" 

" I assure you I took good care never to see 
more than the outside of them ; for if a Christian 
enters a Mohammedan place of worship, he must 
either change his religion, or suffer instant death. 
I never saw such crowds as in the markets of 
Fez : for, although it contains no more than 
one hundred thousand inhabitants, the wander- 
ing Arabs resort to it, to buy whatever neces- 
saries they want. The streets are narrow, and 
the walls of the houses, which are built of 
earth, have no appearance of windows, except 
some small holes to look out at ; they are lighted 
from a square court in the middle of each house, 
and though the outsides have a very mean ap- 
pearance, the rooms are handsomely painted, 
and adorned with gold and silver. Their way 
of building is curious : they place a large wooden 
case where the wall is to stand, and into this 
they put the mortar and stones : when it is dry, 
they take away the case, and the wall, of 
course, remains. The houses are generally 
two stories high ; the roofs are flat ; and the 
women, who live always in the upper rooms, 
walk and pay visits along them. 

" When eating, the Moors never use either 
table or chair ; the dishes are placed on apiece 
of greasy leather, around which they sit cross- 
legged on the ground. Their dishes are made 
of pewter or earthenware, narrow below and 



74 TRAVELS Ix\ AFRICA. 

wide above, almost like a hat with a high 
crown. 

" On the way through Morocco we met a 
great nmnber of moveable villages of the Arabs ; 
these people live in tents, and wander from one 
spot to the other, according as the scarcity of food 
warns them to shift their ground. Their man- 
ners are very singular ; they live in families, 
and will pitch their tents in companies of one 
hundred, or more, t&nts. Near sowing time, 
they encamp beside some spot which they in- 
tend to cultivate : they then enclose some fields 
with good strong fences, and sow the land with 
wheat, barley, corn, or pease : the sowing thus 
finished, they remove again, for the sake of 
finding grazing for their cattle, and wander up 
and down until harvest time, when they return, 
and gather in the crops which they have sown. 
This is generally at the end of August, three 
months after the sowing of the seed. It is cut 
about half a foot from the ear, and made up in 
little bundles ; at which work every one labours 
from morning to night. When the harvest is 
over they set fire to the long stubble, and do not 
visit the same spot for two or three years. 
Their granaries are strangely constructed ; they 
are large holes dug in the ground, and shaped 
like a beehive turned upside down : when these 
are filled with corn they are covered with 
planks placed close to each other, on which 
earth is laid, level with the ground, to prevent 
its being discovered by enemies." 

" From what you say, Tom, I suppose they 



TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 75 

have no men of large estate there, who own a 
great many acres, and let them to farmers ?" 

" No ; the land is there in common, and when 
they pitch upon any spot, and till it, all the corn 
they raise from it belongs to the whole tribe. 
You think this, perhaps, a fine thing ; but, ii 
you saiw the country they live in, you would 
own our plan far better ; for their farming is so 
bad, and they are so fond of that roving life, 
that they are often in great want, although they 
might sow as much ground as they please. 
Give me an acre of ground, even at a smart 
rent, and a good spade, and I warrant you, with 
a good pair of arms, able and willing to work, 
I'll live like a prince, when compared to these 
Arabs. Look out from your door at the smiling 
fields ; do you think I ever saw in these out- 
landish places such a thing as yon field of 
wheat, or such a fine piece of meadow as that 
one across the road ? And then to live under 
a piece of linen always, instead of such a com- 
fortable place as your cabin, and so troubled 
with vermin and insects that you could not lie 
down in safety ! No, father, I believe v.ery 
few would be murmuring about what they have 
not,- if they thought rightly of what they have. 
When these Arabs wish to. shift their encamp- 
ments, they load all their goods on their camels 
and oxen, on whose backs they also place their 
wives and children in large wicker-baskets. A 
wicked or undutiful child might learn from 
these barbarians a lesson of love and obedience 
to his parents. The old ahvays receive the 



76 TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 

first drink of milk, and when proAqsions run low 
they have by far the largest share. On a 
march, the camel is first prepared for the old 
man by fixing a basket, in which they carefully 
place him ; and when the tent is pitched at 
night, he is as carefully taken out the first, and 
placed under it, in order that he may refresh 
himself by sleep. 

" On our arrival at Morocco, my master was 
sent for by the emperor, and when he made 
his visit, he brought me along with him. We 
found him sitting in an English post-chaise, with 
his guards drawn up in a half moon behind him 
He was a very cruel man, often putting his 
subjects to death for the most trifling cause ; 
indeed, we were told that, when he happened 
to be in an ill temper, he often cut ofi* the 
heads of his guards, or attendants, with his own 
hands. Whenever he wears yellow, it is a sure 
sign that he will inflict death on some one ; for 
there is no such thing as law in that country. 
He was very civil, however, to my master ; 
asked him many questions about England, and 
was so pleased with his answers that he sent 
him the next day a present, wrapped up in a 
cloth, by one of his grand oflicers. From the 
manner in which it .was presented, we thought 
it must be something very valuable, and could 
scarcely hide our anxiety to open it till the 
messenger was gone ; but what was our sur- 
prise to find nothing but two black loaves. I 
should be sorry to eat such bread at home ; but 
my master was obliged to conceal his disap- 



TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 77 

pointment, every one assuring him that this was 
the highest mark of regard v^hich the sultan 
could bestow, and showed that he considered 
him a brother. 

" But although my master thought little of his 
present, he was very thankful for a letter which 
came along with it, allowing him to travel 
through his states, and directing all his subjects 
to receive him with honour, and send him on his 
journey, with a sufficient guard for his protection. 
This enabling us to travel with great safety and 
comfort through the whole of Morocco, we set 
out in a few days for Algiers, which is the capi- 
tal of the next state, and is built on the shore of 
the Mediterranean. In several of the towns 
we passed through, we found a house where 
travellers are lodged and entertained for one 
night, at the public expanse. On the roads, 
however, we could get no accommodation ex- 
cept when we fell in with a horde of Arabs ; 
these we always found willing to give us shel- 
ter and food for one night, and they thought 
themselves sufficiently paid by a present of a 
knife, a couple of flints, or a little English gun- 
powder. When any of their women were par- 
ticularly kind, my master would compliment 
them with a pair of scissors, a large needle, or a 
skein of thread, which they received with a 
thousand thanks. But we were obliged to wear 
the dresses of the country, and to appear as 
merchants ; for the Arabs are very jealous of 
strangers ; they think them spies to examine the 
country, and that they will be followed by an 



78 TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 

army sent to subdue them, for they have no idea 
that a man vrould travel out of mere curiosity. 
You are surprised that the mere dress should 
make such an alteration in the appearance of a 
foreigner as. to quiet their suspicions ; yet so it 
is ; perhaps, because they imagine that those 
who put on their peculiar dress have been long 
settled among them, and have given up every 
other country but that in which they live. Our 
road lay across a long chain of high mountains, 
the sides of which are covered with fruit and 
forest trees, nearly to the top, except that here 
and there you see a large rock, on which we 
found a wretched people no better than savages, 
living in villages enclosed by a mud wall. 

" We arrived at Algiers without accident, 
and never did I see such a crowded place ; it is 
said to contain above one hundred and twenty 
thousand inhabitants, and yet I walked around it 
in about an hour. It stands on the side of a hill 
fronting the sea, and the houses rise so gradu- 
ally above each other that, looking at it from 
the waterside, you see the whole of it. The 
hills and valleys around the city, however, are 
beautified with gardens and summer-houses, 
where the rich live ; their dwellings are gene- 
rally white, and the gardens well stocked with 
fruit and vegetables. In the degrert you know 
how much I suffered from thirst, but there was 
no want of water in Algiers ; streams of water 
are constantly flowing down the sides of the 
hills, and almost in every street you meet with 
fountains. 



TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 7\) 

• 

" Toward the sea side, Algiers has the 
strongest fortifications I ever saw ; and, indeed, 
they need all the cannon they can collect, to 
defend them, for they make war upon almost 
every nation of Europe, sending out pirate ves- 
sels which attack whatever ships they meet with, 
and make slaves of the crews." 

" I wonder, Tom, our own country^ allows 
them to rob in this way. I think, if some of 
our men of war were sent to throw down their 
batteries, it would be doing a good act. If that 
was done, they would be obliged to keep quiet ; 
for, when they sit under shelter of the guns, 
they feel secure, knowing that no small force 
could attack them*"* 

" I assure you they often run out of their har- 
bour, and after a short cruise will return per- 
haps with two or three vessels that they have 
seized on the opposite coast of Italy. Indeed, I 
am told their ships crews will sometimes land 
and carry off the inhabitants to their own coun- 
try, where they are sold for slaves." 

* At the time Tom was in Algiers, the case was ex- 
actly as he has stated it ; since that, however, the conduct 
of the Algerines became so bad, that an English fleet was 
sent again§t them, which soon brought them to submis- 
sion. The honour of first humbling the Algerines eflfectu- 
ally belongs to the United States of America, which, in 
1815, " dictated a treaty to the dey, by which the United 
States were for ever absolved from paying tribute to these * 
pirates, as they and other Christian nations had formerly 
done." In 1830, the French sent a strong force against 
them, subverted their government, and took possession of 
the city of Algiers, with its dependant towns, which they 
Btill retain. 



80 TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 

• 

" When so much dishonesty is found in their 
conduct to strangers, I suppose they cannot be 
very just in their dealings with each other." 

" Indeed it could scarcely be expected : you 
know the old saying, ' Might is not always 
right.' The country is ruled by a parcel of 
soldiers, who always choose the governor out 
of their own body ; and his first act is to put 
those to death who opposed his election ; they 
rise, therefore, from the ranks, and are not 
ashamed to acknowledge their humble origin. 
When I was there the dey had a dispute with 
the consul of a neighbouring state, in the course 
of which he acknowledged, that he had once 
been a private soldier : ' My mother,' said he, 
' sold sheep's feet, and my father neat's tongues, 
but they would have been ashamed to bring to 
market such a worthless tongue as thine !' 
You must not suppose, however, that this go- 
vernor, who had been raised from the lowest to 
the highest station, is thereby made happy ; it 
were better for him, by far, if his parents were 
poor, to have continued so himself, for scarcely 
one in ten of their governors dies a natural 
death. 

" When the Algerines dine, they sit cross- 
legged around a table about four inches high, and 
use neither knives nor forks. Before they be- 
gin, they say, ' In the name of God ;' and when 
the meal is over, a slave pours water over their 
hands. Sherbet and coffee are their usual drink, 
wine being forbidden by their religion. They 
are for the most part fair : the rich suffer their ' 



TRAVELS IxV AFRICA. 81 

beards to grow, and wear clothes of most costly 
materials ; the ladies colour their eyebrows 
with lead, which gives them a very strange 
appearance. 

" When a person dies, the corpse is carried to 
the grave attended by a great crowd ; the fune- 
ral proceeds not slowly, as with us, but as fast 
as they can carry it, the persons present sing- 
ing some verses out of the Koran, which is the 
book that contains the doctrines of their reli- 
gion ; the female relations, for two or three 
months after, visit the grave once a week, at the 
head and foot of which, upright stones are 
placed, and the space between is either planted 
with flowers or paved with tiles. 

" The contract of marriage is settled always 
by the parents ; the young people being united 
without ever having known each other before, 
and the only ceremony is drinking out of each 
other's hands. The fathers agree upon the sum 
that is to be settled on the lady, as also on the 
present she is to receive. 

" Tunis, the next city on the coast which my 
master arrived at, stands, like Algiers, on a 
rising ground, along the western bank of a large 
lake ; it is surrounded by marshes, which would 
probably make it very unhealthy, if it were not 
for the salubrity of the climate and the abun- 
dance of sweet-smelling plants which grows 
there ; indeed, so plentiful are they, that the 
people gather them for fuel to heat their ovens 
and baths. The town is not so large as Algiers. 
The people are fearless, ignorant, and savage. 
6 



82 TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 

" In the kingdom of Tunis, the rich entertain 
their friends on certain occasions, such as a 
marriage feast, with the honey of the palm tree, 
which is thought a great delicacy, and well it 
may, for, in order to get it, the whole tree is de- 
stroyed. They cut off the head or crown, and 
scoop the top into the shape of a bowl, into 
which the sap rises, and for nearly the first 
fortnight it yields three or four quarts a day; 
after this, however, the tree is good for nothing 
but for timber or firewood ; the liquor is sweeter 
than honey, and, when kept till it grows tart, 
makes a strong spirit by being distilled. There 
is also a tree, the leaves of which are made 
use of by the African women for dying their 
lips, hair, hands, and feet, of a saffron colour, 
which they think greatly adds to their beauty." 

" That appears to us very absurd, Tom ; yet 
I warrant they would think our ladies just as 
foolish for painting their cheeks and eyebrows,** 
as I am told some do — but I suppose they 
don't spend so long a time decking themselves," 
continued old Jackson, " as some in this coun- 
try ?" 

" I don't know as to that," answered Tom, 
" but when a lady of rank is dressing, she has 
a number of women slaves about her, each :f 
whom has a different employment : one plaits 
the hair, another perfumes it, a third settles the 
eyebrows, and a fourth paints the face ; in short, 
the full dress employs several hours, and alters 
her appearance so much that her nearest rela- 
tions can scarcely know her. 



TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 83 

" I don't think it necessary to say much of 
Tripoli, which is the next town on the coast, 
going east, and very like those I have already 
mentioned ; we arrived there just at the time 
the plague was raging, and of course passed 
through it as quickly as possible. It had made 
great ravages, my master was informed, before 
they took any means of checking it. On such 
occasions, it is always the custom for the Eu- 
ropeans who reside there to shut themselves 
up within their houses, and to hold no commu- 
nication with the people, for fear of taking the 
infection, but at the request of the governor 
they did not do it at first, for fear of creating an 
alarm. The deaths, however, grew more nu- 
merous, and they were obUged to adopt it. At 
such times no native is' admitted into their 
houses, unless at one particular time of the day, 
when a person, hired for the purpose, comes 
and places provisions on the lobby, with an ac- 
count of the value, and immediately goes away ; 
on his next visit he finds the sum he had laid 
out. The plague at length raged so violently 
that the funerals could not be conducted with 
any order ; the military went once a day around 
for the dead, and carried them to a common 
burial place, where they were all placed toge- 
ther, without any distinction. Would you be- 
lieve that one-third of the inhabitants. died ?" 

"Is it because these people have no doctors 
among them ?" said old Jackson. 

" My master said it was partly from want of 
proper advice, but he believed the principal 



84 TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 

cause was want of cleanliness. ' I will not say 
that dirt actually brings sickness,' said my mas- 
ter, ' but of this I am sure, that when fever pre- 
vails, it finds no difficulty in seizing on those 
who have neglected that necessary study, clean- 
liness ; it finds the door of the cleanly closed, 
but that of the lazy and untidy more than half 
open to let it in.' 

" On our way eastward we crossed a river, 
about which my master made many inquiries. 
He told me he had read in a history, that about 
two thousand years ago, a serpent, one hundred 
and twenty feet long, disputed the passage with 
the whole Roman army, killing a great many 
soldiers ; nor was it conquered till the general 
threw great stones at it with machines, which 
crushed it. We now entered on the desert of 
Barca, which divides the state of Tripoli from 
Egypt, and a dreary waste we found it, almost 
without water or vegetation. 

" Hunting the ostrich is a favourite diversion 
among the Arabs, who live scattered through 
this desert. You sometimes see ostrich feathers 
in ladies' bonnets — you know they are long, 
flat, and generally of a pure white ; the bird 
which gives them is the tallest of the feathered 
race, often measuring seven feet from the top 
of the head to the ground. We met, one day, 
a party of Arabs in chase of one of these birds ; 
there were not less than twenty, riding at about 
three-quarters of a mile's distance behind each 
other. The ostrich never flies, its wino^s beinor 
too short, but it uses them to assist its pace in 



TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 85 

running, spreading them out wide as it proceeds. 
When it runs against the wind, however, its 
wings, if extended, would rather retard its 
flight, and this is the reason why the hunters 
get the animal to the windward. As soon as 
they perceive their prey, they rush upon it in 
full speed, upon which the ostrich sets off, en- 
deavouring, if possible, to get the wind behind 
him. 

" Soon fatigued, however, it slackens its 
speed, and is knocked down by the short 
sticks of those that follow. As soon as those 
I saw engaged in the pursuit had the bird com- 
pletely in their power, they proceeded to kill 
and pluck out its feathers ; the spoil was then 
divided, and a share being given to each of 
the hunters, they separated, every man going to 
his home, that he might prepare the food for his 
family. My master informed me, that when 
they are obliged to hunt the ostrich with the 
wind, the silly animal, from its extraordinary 
swiftness, would soon escape, if instead of go- 
ing off in a straight line, he did not move in 
circles, which enables the hunters still to keep 
him in view, till he becomes quite spent with 
fatigue : he now finds all escape impossible, 
and endeavours to hide himself from his ene- 
mies by covering his head up with the sand, or 
in the first thicket he meets. 

"This, father, was all we saw worth remark- 
ing, on our journey from Morocco along the 
shore of the Mediterranean Sea. We were now 
drawing near to Egypt, of which we read so 



86 TRAVELS ^ AFRICA. 

much in the Bible ; and, I confess, I had a 
great desire to see the country where Joseph 
had showed himself such an affectionate son, 
and so kind a brother. I called to mind, that it 
was here Pharaoh kept the children of Israel in 
slavery for four hundred years, and that it was 
upon the banks of the river Nile, which flows 
through this country, that IMoses was found by 
the king's daughter when his mother had con- 
cealed him among the rushes that grew there. 
It was, therefore, with no small pleasure that, 
a few days after quitting Tripoli, we entered the 
city of Alexandria, which lies at the mouth of 
the Nile, where that river runs into the Mediter- 
ranean Sea. Here we stopped but a day or 
two, as my master was anxiaus to hasten on to 
Cairo. 

" Alexandria was once a great city, but it is 
now faUing into ruin ; and it was a pity to see 
the beautiful pillars, and the remains of great 
buildings, all lying broken and decaying on the 
ground. There are two obelisks still standing, 
which, they told me, were called Cleopatra's 
Needles. I cannot forget the name, for sure 
such needles never were seen : they are each 
a single block of stone, sixty-three feet high ; 
and there is another fine pillar, called Pompey's 
Pillar, also made out of a single block of granite, 
and about the same height. In this country we 
have no idea of making a pillar out of one great 
piece of rock ; but they had, in those days, the 
art of cutting those large stones out of the quarry, 
and of setting them to stand upright. The city 



TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 87 

is enclosed with great walls, in some places 
forty, and nowhere less than twenty feet high, 
around which are one hundred towers, the 
whole making a circuit of about six miles. 
The first night I was there, I was awakened 
with a noise in the town, like a yell, or a kind 
of bark, of some wild animal, which never 
ceased till toward dawn of day. Upon in- 
quiring in the morning, I was told that it was 
the cries of the jackals, who, during the night, 
collect about the streets in search of food. 

" I told you that all the old part of the town 
is falling into ruins ; there is, however, one new 
street of handsome houses, and inhabited by 
merchants. This was once a place of great 
trade, and very wealthy ; but war, joined with 
the indolent habits of the people, has brought 
it into ruin. The houses are white, and flat- 
roofed, and the windows not of glass, like 
ours, but made of a kind of lattice work, some- 
times of fine wire bars, sometimes of wood. In 
hot countries, this kind of window is preferred, 
because it admits the air. It was curious to 
see the mixture of different nations, of which the 
inhabitants of this town are composed ; Jews, 
Turks, Arabians, &c. Their tone of voice is 
so loud that they almost seem to be bawling at 
each other, and they have a swinging way of 
walking, more like running than any thing else. 
Altogether, I thought they were the oddest look- 
ing set of people I ever saw in my life ; many 
a time my master had to caution me, not to let 
them see me laughing at them, for fear they 



88 TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 

should be offended : and one day he said to 
me, what I never thought of before, that, if 
one of them was to come among us, he would 
think us just as strange a people as we think 
them. 

" About twelve miles from Alexandria are 
the ruins of a fine city, called Aboukir, where 
Lord Nelson won one of his greatest victories. 
This place is all in ruins, and very poor ; there 
is not a wealthy person in the whole town ; 
every one is obliged to follow some poor trade 
for his subsistence : — most of the men are fish- 
ermen ; the governor is a barber, and the per- 
son who is next in rank to him in the town is 
an old Jew, who lives upon a salary of about 
seven cents a day. 

" About six miles from Aboukir we crossed a 
ferry, called Medea : from Medea our road lay' 
through very dry sand ; to avoid which, my 
master and I rode in the sea, along by the edge 
of the sand ; we then took the shore again, and 
pursued our road eastward. Here we observed 
small brick towers, eleven of them placed at 
equal distances, I suppose to mark out the way 
for travellers, as this was all a stretch of sand, 
and, of course, no regular road made through it. 
At length we came to Rosetta, and glad enough 
were we to reach it, though one has but little 
comfort in arriving at the end of a journey in 
these countries ; the towns are so dirty, and the 
streets so narrrow, that you feel as if you had 
scarcely air enough to breathe ; there is not a 
street in Rosetta more than tw^o yards wide : I 



TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 89 

could touch the shops on each side, when I 
stretched out my arms, as I walked along. — 
Having heard that there was to be a public 
feast in a neighbouring village the next day, my 
master told me he would be there himself 
to see it, and that I might attend with him if I 
pleased. 

" When we arrived at the house where the 
entertainment was given, we found, according to 
the custom of the country, all kinds of food 
spread out on the carpet upon the floor : there 
were immense dishes of rice, either boiled in 
milk or made into a kind of soup. I saw several 
half sheep and quarters of lamb roasted, as also 
the heads of different animals boiled, vegetables, 
jellies, sweetmeats, creams, honey in the comb, 
and large loaves of bread. The water for 
drink was served about in a large jar, and the 
chief man of the village, who had given the 
feast, took the first draught of the water, and 
was the first to taste the different dishes. Dur- 
ing dinner, I remarked that the company wiped 
their hands and lips with a slice of bread; how- 
ever, after dinner, the attendants brought bowls 
of water and napkins, and each person washed 
his hands, and then began to smoke and drink 
coffee. They were going to begin their feast 
when my master and I went in ; they received 
us kindly, and when I saw my master seated, I 
was just going to place myself at the lower e'nd 
of the room, (for table they had none, every 
thing was laid out upon the floor,) but he made 
a sign to me not to do so ; I therefore stood 



90 TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 

behind him, to wait on him during the feast, and 
he then told me that all the attendants were to 
dine after their masters, and that of course I 
should wait till it came to my turn. But, indeed, 
I was not thinking much of eating, I was so 
entertained with the strange sights before me. 
However, there was a quantity of food laid out, 
and when these had finished, all the respectable 
poor people of the village came in, and sat down 
to eat ; after them came some persons poorer 
still than they. I remember one poor beggar, 
who humbly begged to get a morsel ; and as at 
these public feasts it is reckoned sinful to turn 
away any person without letting him have his 
share, he was readily admitted. Next came our 
turn, and though you might think, after so many 
had eaten before us, but little would remain, 
yet, I assure you, such was the quantity of pro- 
vision first laid down, that there was enough 
left, even after us, for a number of poor 
strangers, and others who had not yet had 
their turn, to come in and eat, and who after- 
ward divided among themselves the remains of 
the feast. 

" There are people of almost every nation in 
the world living in Egypt ; and during our stay 
in the different towns, it was an amusement to 
us to distinguish them by their various kinds of 
dress. There was one race of people, in par- 
ticular, who came from a part of Africa called 
Nubia, and whose appearance is very singular, 
their skin being of a shining jetty black, not like 
any of the blacks I had ever seen, their eyes 



TRAVELS IN AFRICA. * 91 

sparkling, and with bushy black eye-brows ; 
and when the men grow old, their beard be^ 
comes white as flax, which, on their black faces, 
gives them the oddest appearance in the world. 
They dress themselves in a large woollen cloth 
wrapped around them, and such as are poor are 
very humble, work hard, and live sparingly. I 
was told, also, that those who are servants are 
the most faithful creatures to their masters ; and " 
indeed when I heard it I thought what a shame 
it was for us Christians, that there should be 
more virtue found among these poor ignorant 
people than among many of the servants of our 
own country, who are well paid and well fed. 

" There are also a great many Jews and 
Turks living in different parts of Egypt." 

" Ay, Tom, I should like to hear about the 
Turks ; they are not an industrious hard-work- 
ing people, like the poor Nubians ?" 

" I believe," replied Tom, "the Turks are the 
laziest people in the world : they will sit for the 
whole day under a shady tree, or on a cushion 
in the room, smoking tobacco and drinking cof- 
fee ; those vi^ho are rich have their pipes made of 
fine sweet-scented wood, and I often saw them 
set with jewels ; and they carry their tobacco, 
which is of the finest kind, in beautiful embroi- 
dered silk purses hung from their waists." 

" And pray what sort of dress do they wear, 
Tom?" 

" They wear very long robes, which sweep 
the ground after them as they walk ; gloves* 
which reach nearly half a foot beyond the ends 



92 4 TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 

of their fingers ; and a large head-dress, called 
a turban, made of a fine piece of silky wrapped 
around and around their head, and this is so large 
and weighty that they are obKged to walk quite 
straight, and not to stoop, lest it should fall. I 
believe it is from this early custom of holding 
themselves so upright, that they all have such a 
stately air, even to ths poorest of them. As I be- 
- fore observed, they are a lazy, indolent people ; 
even those who are obliged to work . for their 
bread will choose such trades as give them least 
labour, and at these trades they will sit down 
as much as possible while doing their work. I 
often thought what good it would do them to be 
obhged to follow the plough from six in the 
morning until six in the evening, as we do in 
this country, earning our bread ; for honest in- 
dustry is the life of us all ; and these fellows 
always seemed to me to be dying for want of 
some hard work to do. 

" The Egyptian women wear long veils of 
thick black cloth, with two holes cut in them 
for eyes, and take great pains to hide the rest 
of the face : their eyes are generally fine 
brown, and they will sometimes die their eye- 
brows and eye-lashes to make them appear 
darker. 

" The river Nile, which I mentioned to you 
as flowing through this country, is said to be 
one of the largest in the world. At a particu- 
lar time in the year, torrents of rain swell all 
the mountain streams that fall into it, and cause 
it to overflow its banks. You may conceive in 



TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 93 

what quantities it comes down when I tell you 
that it runs a length of two thousand miles before 
it discharges itself into the sea. The time of this 
rising of the river was not while we were there,; 
but the people of Alexandria told me that at those 
times the whole face of the country around is 
covered with water ; nothing is then to be seen 
but trees and houses, which, in this part of 
Egypt, are always built on little hillocks, which 
raise them up out of the water, so that a person 
looking out from one of these hills, it would 
seem as if there was nothing but one great sea 
before him, with a few scattered trees and 
houses standing up through it. 

" This watering is of great use to the soil, 
and is doubtless sent by Providence to supply 
the want of rain, which in this country seldom 
falls. The houses of all the small villages in 
Egypt, and the poor people's cottages, are built 
of mud, and have generally but one room. 
The peasantry of Egypt live very poorly ; their 
principal food is a cake made of a kind of In- 
dian corn ; this, with a drink of water, and a 
few onions, is what they usually live upon ; it 
is only the more wealthy who can afford them- 
selves a little cheese, sour milk, honey, or a few 
dates, a fruit as common there as apples with 
us. After a few days at Rosetta, we sailed up 
the river Nile to Cairo. It surprised me to see 
how close the villages were built to each other 
all along the banks : in the space of twelve 
miles I counted fifteen on one side only. The' 
country is fertile and well cultivated. 



94 TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 

" And what kind of grain do they grow there, 
Tom ?" said his father. 

" Principally Indian wheat and rice, and a 
good deal of Indian millet : this is the grain of 
which the poor people make their cake bread. 

" The city of Cairo stands nearly on the banks 
of the river Nile, and every house has a garden 
to it. The streets are exceedingly crowded ; 
and it surprised me to see what numbers of 
camels, mules, and asses they have in use there. 
Their asses are large fine looking animals : 
their step is light and brisk, and they are very 
sure-footed ; they are taken very good care of, 
especially by the rich, who prefer them to horses 
for long journeys, because they are better able 
to bear hard labour, and do not require either as 
good food or as much as a horse would. There 
were also vast numbers of goats in Cairo ; I 
have seen them driven in flocks through the 
town, and the owners milking them in the 
streets, and selling the milk to the passengers, 
who, in this hot country, willingly pay for a 
good drink. 

" The people sufl*er greatly in Egypt, and 
more particularly at Cairo, from a bad disorder 
in their eyes, called ophthalmy, which is com- 
mon to the country. Many persons are quite 
blind, and almost every one suffers from it more 
or less : of one hundred whom I met in the 
streets, twenty were totally blind, ten had but 
one eye, and twenty at least had their eyes 
bleared. I believe all Egyptians are indolent, 
but at Cairo they appear as though they would 



TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 95 

rather let their houses fall down about them, 
than take the trouble of repairing them." 

" Well, Tom, I think if people were ever so 
lazy, the comfort of a good house is the last 
they would part with." 

*' Indeed, so one would think, father ; but in 
these warm countries, and where there is so 
little rain, they don't mind it as much as we 
should. I assure you, I have seen that when 
the wall of a house in Cairo was out of repair, 
and threatening to fall, they would just prop it 
up, and when it had partly fallen, they laid out 
their furniture in the open space, and continued 
to live there till the house fell down entirely, 
when they left it there in ruin, and went off to 
settle themselves in another. 

" There is a great canal running through the 
town, which, when the Nile rises, is supplied 
with water from that river ; at other times it is 
quite dry, and serves as a public receptacle for 
all kinds of offal. Until the Nile has risen to 
its greatest height, a high bank of earth is 
drawn across the end of the canal, and the 
channel is cleared ; and when the stream has 
risen to a proper height, this bank is removed, 
and the water flows rapidly into the canal up 
through the town, and though a number of 
smaller channels to the more distant fields. 
This is the time for all kinds of gayety at Cairo : 
barges and small boats, crowded with company, 
are to be seen in great numbers on the water in 
the evening, many of them with bands of music 
on board ; the houses are illuminated, the 



96 TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 

windows filled with company, and a quantity of 
fireworks are thrown up from the town. This 
takes place during the month of August. As 
soon as the waters begin to decline, the canal 
in time gets dry, and they sow corn in its bed, 
so that shortly after, in the spot where there 
was nothing to be seen but one sheet of water, 
we find the corn in full growth. 

" The Egyptian horses are as beautiful as the 
Arabian, although they have not such great 
strength, but they are finely shaped, and very 
spirited, and yet so gentle that any one could 
guide them. They walk remarkably well, 
never trot, but gallop with great speed, and can 
stop short in a minute. 

'' The great men of Cairo generally keep from 
fifty to two hundred horses, fifty or sixty slaves, 
and as many servants, besides other attendants. 

" I followed a funeral one morning at Cairo ; 
the body was carried on a bier, the priests 
walked before, repeating aloud sentences from 
a religious book, and many women followed, 
mourning, and uttering cries of grief. All the 
burial grounds are outside of the town : when 
they have laid the body in the grave, they set 
up a small pillar of stone at the head, with a 
turban on the top of it ; and it is usual for the 
friends of the deceased to visit the grave every 
Friday for a considerable time after. 

" There is a considerable manufactory of 
linen at Cairo, made of the fine flax of Egypt 
But I should tell you of the manner in which 
chickens are hatched at Cairo. The people 



TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 97 

heat large ovens, as nearly as possible to the 
same degree of warmth that the hen gives to eggs 
by sitting upon them : into this oven they v^rill 
put seven or eight thousand eggs, which in 
two and twenty days are hatched. This pro- 
cess is repeated for four months, and during that 
time some hundred thousand chickens are pro- 
duced. Those engaged in this business make 
a good livelihood by going through the country 
in the proper season ; and though, to be sure, 
the eggs sometimes fail, as perhaps by thunder, 
vv^hich injures them very much, or by some ac- 
cident, yet what I have said proves that this art 
is pursued with wonderful success. 

" The day after we arrived at Cairo, my 
master hired two horses, and made me accom- 
pany him out of the town, about twelve miles, 
to the village of Gize, to see what are called 
the pyramids of Egypt, which used to be called 
one of the seven wonders of the world. There 
are several of them, and they are all built in 
the same form, square at the bottom, and gra- 
dually growing narrower, until they come almost 
to a point at the top. Each side of the great 
pyramid is seven hundred feet long at the base, 
and the building is of such vast size that the 
top appears almost a point in comparison with 
it, although it is sixty feet square. They are 
made of a kind of white stone, ca'lled freestone ; 
and this one, which I have described, is six 
hundred feet high. In order to bring the build- 
ing narrow to the top, the stones are not set 
even one over the other, for then the walls 
7 



98 TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 

would rise straight up, just like the side of a 
house; but they are laid one farther in than an- 
other, in regular rows or courses all around, so 
as to leave a ledge of the under stones project- 
ing, which serve as steps for climbing them. 
It is curious from a distance to see a number of 
men clambering, step after step, up the sides of 
this huge building, looking no bigger than so 
many mice going up a mountain ; and I heard 
that when the British soldiers were there they 
continually went up and down, without the least 
accident. Such a quantity of stones did it take 
to build these pyramids, that I was told, if the 
largest of them was pulled down, it would fur- 
nish enough to build a wall four hundred and 
fifty miles long, and three feet high." 

" And what were these great buildings raised 
for, Tom ? One would think that so much 
money as they must have cost would not have 
been expended but for some useful purpose." 

" That was the first question I asked my 
master," said Tom, " and he told me they were 
built for burial places for the old kings of Egypt. 
I could not help thinking what a perishable 
thing the human body is, and how vain it was 
to raise those great piles of building over what 
was as insensible to all this grandeur as the 
stones they were building with. 

" I longed of all things to get inside, and my 
master told me I might accompany him if I 
pleased. Indeed, he was always very kind to 
me in this respect, and as ready to answer my 
questions as if I were his equal in station ; 



TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 99 

perhaps that might be because he had no other 
companion. The opening by which we got 
into the pyramid that we entered is nearly sixty 
feet from the ground ; but it is easily reached 
by a high mound of sarid and rubbish which lies 
beneath it. We had two Arabs with us as guides, 
and when we arrived at the entrance, one of 
them fired a 4)istol, to frighten away the bats, 
which collect in great numbers, and build their 
nests in the inside of the pyramids. Before en- 
tering, we were obliged to throw off our clothes, 
on account of the great heat which is felt within, 
and each of us carried a lighted wax candle in 
our hands, for torches would have caused too 
much smoke in the narrow passages by which 
we entered. We thought the first narrow 
enough, indeed, but when we came to the se- 
cond, it was only two feet wide, and not more 
than one and a half high ; so that we were 
obliged to lie down on our backs, while the 
guides took hold of our feet, and dragged us 
along. This passage was a steep ascent, and 
was, I should judge, about seven or eight yards 
long ; it led into another gallery, or passage, 
like the first, and beyond that we found an open 
space, like a room, where we were so tired that 
we were glad to stop and take some refresh- 
ments. We had then to go through another 
passage, and thence to descend down a narrow 
deep hole, which we were obliged to go through 
just as a chimney sweeper gets down a chim- 
ney : this brought us to another chamber, where 
lay a coffin, made of a single block of granite 



100 TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 

Stone, and which, when one of the guides struck 
it, sounded quite hollow. And this w^as all we 
had gone through such labour and difficulty to 
see ! and it was to contain this single coffin 
and the lifeless body of some king, whose very 
name is unknown to us, that all this great pile 
of building was raised ! For my part, I was 
quite disappointed ; but my master examined 
the coffin, picked up a fragment of the stone off 
the ground, and showed me how the walls of 
the chamber had once been white as marble, 
but were now become quite black from the smoke 
of the torches which travellers use in visiting 
this place. We had used only wax lights in 
going through the narrow passages, but when 
we came to the coffin chamber, they lighted the 
torches, and put them out again on quitting it. 
We returned by the same way we came ; but, 
before we came away, one of the Arabs fired a 
pistol, which rang through the building like 
thunder. All the passages are lined with white 
marble, and so polished that were it not for little 
holes cut in the floor, for resting the feet in as 
you walk along, they would be quite impassable. 
" When we at length got out, and had put 
on our clothes, in order to prevent our catch- 
ing cold, my master proposed that we should 
ascend up to the top of the pyramid on the out- 
side ; we accordingly clambered up, not by the 
side of the building, but at one of the corners, 
making our way by stepping up from stone to 
stone, and always looking out for the safest 
footing ; we reached the top, and so great was 



TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 101 

the view from it, that I could have thought I 
was looking over whole countries. We here 
also amused ourselves reading the names of 
travellers who had visited this place, and who 
had cut their names in the stone. Something 
came across my mind, that some of my old ship 
companions might, perhaps, be brought here by 
chance, as I was myself, and that I might thus 
let them know I was still in the land of the 
living, I just took out my penknife, and who- 
ever goes to the top of that pyramid may see the 
name, " Tom Jackson, of the Caledonia," cut in 
one of the stones there." 

" Now, Thomas,, how long did they say it 
was in building, and where was the money got 
which paid all the workmen ?" 

" Why, as to the time they were building it, 
I was told il took many years ; but I don't think 
it cost much money. In those days, it is said, 
every third man in all Egypt was forced to give 
his labour in hewing and carrying the stones to 
the spot, and this without any wages ; but it is 
the same thing still ; these great men can call 
out the poor to work for them ; and if a man 
dares to murmur, they think no more of taking 
off his head than I should of striking* the 
ground with my stick. How different from 
our own happy country, where the laws are 
made equally for both poor and rich ! I should 
tell you that the entire outside stone-work of 
the pyramids is all done without mortar, or any 
thing to keep the stones together ; but their 
own weight, and their all being fitted each to 



102 TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 

the Other, makes them immoveably firm. In all 
the inside masonry, a great deal of mortar is 
used, made of lime and clay. It is not long 
since a great chief in Egypt, having the idea 
that there was some rich treasm*e concealed in 
one of the pyramids that had never yet been 
opened, employed several hundred workmen to 
break a passage into the centre of it : for se- 
veral months the work went on, but the labour 
was so excessive, and the quantity of rubbish 
to be cleared away so enormous, that he was 
obliged to give up the hopes of making himself 
rich in this way. Of a clear morning, the 
pyramids can be seen nearly thirty miles off, 
and look like high white rocks standing up 
into the clouds. Yet though they look so high 
at a distance, it is only when you come near to 
them that you can have a just iSea of their 
amazing size, in every way. They are like a 
mountain of building ; I don't know what else 
to compare them to. 

" Near the foot pf the pyramid which we were 
in is an immense stone figure, called a sphynx, 
having the head and face of a female, and the 
rest of the body like that of a lion. It is cut in 
one piece out of the solid rock, and those which 
have been thought joinings of the stones, are 
only veins in the rock. At present, only the 
head and neck of the figure are above ground, 
together with the top of the back, to the tail, 
the rest being covered by the sand, which is 
here continually drifting ; the figure is one hun- 
dred and thirty -three feet in lengthy from the 



TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 103 

fore part of the neck to the tail, so you may 
judge what a size it is ; the whole head looked 
almost as big as this cottage ; the chin alone is 
ten feet and a half long, and the face measures 
sixteen feet in length. I asked my master for 
what purpose it was made ; but he told me that 
it is not at all known, nor at what time it was done, 
but that it is supposed to have been formed at the 
same time with the pyramids. I have told you 
it took a great many years to build one of those 
pyramids ; but besides that, it took ten years to 
make the road, and convey the stones to it, and 
ten more to form the inside of it in the manner 
I have described to you. 

" Having thus satisfied our curiosity, my 
master and I embarked in a boat he hired, 
and sailed up the river : at night we landed, 
and slept at a monastery which stood near the 
left bank. The monks at first were very un- 
willing to admit us, being strangers ; and 
though the promise of a handsome present soft- 
ened them a little, they positively refused to 
open their gate, but said that if we would let 
ourselves be drawn up by a rope, they would 
take us in by one of the upper windows. This, 
I afterward understood, was done only for their 
own security, as they lived in great fear of at- 
tacks from the wandering tribes of Arabs, who 
subsist by plunder. The Arabs will sometimes 
come in a body, and lay siege to a monastery, 
obliging the monks to furnish them both with 
provisions and money. I have already men- 
tioned what I know of the habits of these Arabs; 



104 TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 

they live in tents, have no fixed place of resi- 
dence, and change it as often as the scarcity 
of food compels them to it. Their food is 
simply milk and dates, or a coarse kind of cake 
bread ; and yet, poor as they are, they never 
turn away their face from a stranger, or from 
one that wants relief. There is not a poor 
traveller who asks leave to rest himself, that 
would not be made welcome, and given a share 
of whatever they had. I remember, one day I 
was present when an Arab sat at his tent door, 
according to custom, with his food before him ; 
he saw a stranger drawing near; he did not 
know the traveller, and yet he invited him, with 
the greatest cordiality, to take share of his hos- 
pitality. They ate together, and, after the meal 
was over, the guest stood up, and said, in a very 
devout tone of voice, " God be praised ;" an 
example, though it came from a savage, that I 
wish all Christians would' follow. But to tell 
you about the monastery : — This was a very 
strong-built house, in which a number of reli- 
gious people lived together, and it had a small 
garden, in which they raised kitchen vegetables 
for their own use. When they found we had 
come peaceably, and that no one else was with 
us, they opened their door, and let us in, and 
we sat down with them to the meal they had 
prepared for themselves, — some hard biscuit, 
rice boiled in salt and water, and a little honey." 
" And why, Tom, did your master prefer 
going there to stopping in the town with the 
rest of the boat's crew ?" 



TRAVELS IN AFRICA. l05 

" The abbot of this monastery, who was at 
Cairo, had given my master a letter of introduc- 
tion to these monks, recommending him to their 
protection, and requesting them to give him 
whatever advice or assistance was in their 
power, — and my master, being a stranger in the 
country, wished to profit by it. We, however, 
did not make any stay with them, but quitted 
the monastery at an early hour the next morn- 
ing ; the monks giving us such advice and 
direction as we stood in need of. As we passed 
up the river, we often observed the manner in 
which the inhabitants draw water from it. The 
women come down with three jars each, and 
will carry home one very large one on the 
head, with a smaller one slung on the back by 
a rope which passes around their forehead ; and 
a smaller still on the left shoulder, held by the 
right hand. Both men and women are indus- 
trious, and labour hard for a poor livelihood. 
Resting places for travellers are to be seen for 
a considerable way along the river, southward 
of the town of Siout, and distant from each 
other about a mile and a half; they have been 
built by pious and charitable persons, and con- 
sist generally of two chambers, a fountain, a 
cistern, and a watering trough ; and here the 
traveller may rest, and draw abundance of 
water for his camels. 

" From Siout we continued to sail up the 
river till we came to Girgeh ; here we met a 
Nubian prince, brother to the king of Darfur, a 
province in that part of Africa called Nubia. 



106 TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 

This was a lively, gay, and clever young man, 
and, like the Nubians I have already described 
to you, of an uncommonly black colour. He 
told us he was going to Cairo, and that he was 
bringing there a quantity of gold dust and ele- 
phants' teeth, which, you know, is what we 
call ivory and these he was to barter for coffee, 
sugar, lead, iron, cloth, and shawls, and also 
for tamarinds, which are a very common fruit 
in Egypt. These articles, to my great sur- 
prise, I found had been brought from Tom- 
buctoo, whence, although it is full six months' 
journey from Darfur, the inhabitants will come 
every year, and purchase the articles brought 
from Cairo, giving gold dust in exchange, for 
which the merchant is always sure to find a 
ready sale. This will give you an idea of the 
manner in which these people carry on trade 
with each other. 

" One night that we slept at a village called 
Furshout, the chief of a neighbouring town 
seized on our boat, and detained it for his own 
use. My master had met, in the village, a mer- 
chant, whom he had known at Cairo, and to 
him he applied in the morning, to know what 
he should do to recover it. He advised him to 
apply to an Arab prince, who lived near the 
town, and to whom he conducted us. The 
prince was seated under an orange tree in his 
garden, but stood up, and received my master 
with great civility ; he gave us all some fine 
grapes and a drink of lemonade, and immedi- 
ately sent orders for the release of the boat, 



. TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 107 

which was accordingly restored. My master 
made him a present of some bottles of liquors 
and Cairo brandy, which were received as a 
great favour by the chief, who gave him in re- 
turn letters of introduction to several Arab sheiks^ 
or chiefs, besides ordering a supply of provisions 
to be sent on board our boat. 

" Our next town, of any note, was Dendera. 
Near this we' saw hundreds of crocodiles, an 
animal common in Egypt. They live in the 
water, and are said to be very ferocious, but I 
never knew an instance of their injuring any 
person. I often bathed in the Nile when the 
water was full of them, and they never attempt- 
ed to hurt me. 

" The Egyptians sow their grain much in the 
same way that we plant potatoes ; the sower 
follows the plough, scattering in the furrows 
just as much seed as is necessary, and this is 
covered by the plough in opening the next fur- 
row, so that not a single grain is lost. 

" The rams of Egypt are large, and have a 
thick fleece like our sheep ; their skins are used 
for beds by the Egyptians. One of these skins, 
large enough to serve a man as a mattress, will 
sell for the value of twenty shillings ; while, if 
the animal was shorn, the owner would not get 
more than six for him. 

" We continued sailing up the river every 
day, stopping only at such places as my master 
found any thing worth remarking for, until, at 
length, we came to the city of Thebes ; and 
here there was enough to induce any one, even 



108 TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 

me, to stop. Of all the cities I ever saw, and 
I have now seen a great many, this had the ap- 
pearance of having once been the finest in the 
world, though now gone to ruin ; and at every 
step we made, there lay enough to convince us 
that there is no work of man, however great, but 
time can destroy. It would grieve you to see 
all the fine pillars, temples, and obelisks broken 
and decaying, not indeed on the ground, but in 
it ; for the earth has collected over them to such 
a depth that many of the statues are sunk in it 
up to the waist ; and my master told me, that 
if we were to dig around any of the pillars, we 
should find it sunk, perhaps, to the depth of 
twenty or thirty feet ; for which reason, though 
they are of a prodigious size, some of them 
from nine to twelve feet in thickness, they do 
not appear of any great height." " I suppose, 
Tom, the statues are all just the natural size, as 
large as life." " Ay, father, they are ten times 
as large ; one I cannot forget, which, though 
half sunk under the earth, stood full thirteen 
feet above ground, up to the top of a high cap 
that was upon the head. I heard my mas- 
ter say, that, if well proportioned, the whole 
figure must be fifty feet in height ; so I may well 
call them nearly ten times as large as a com- 
mon-sized man. 

" We stayed some days at Thebes ; for my 
part, I soon got tired of such a desolate place, 
for there is scarcely a human being to be seen 
there, and those few live in the poor huts which 
are scattered through the town. 



TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 109 

" We lodged in an old ill-built house, with 
mud walls : the night before we came away, 
the rats were running- about in such numbers 
that it was impossible to sleep : we lay upon 
the door, stretched on carpets, my master at 
one end of the room, and I at the other ; and 
these animals, which are a great deal larger 
than those of our country, were running over us; 
and gnawing our carpets, during the whole 
night. I flung my shoes at them, and every 
thing else I could reach, but nothing would 
drive them away, until at length we were driven 
out ourselves ; for it blew a violent storm, and 
every now and then lumps of clay would break 
down from the walls of our crazy old house, and 
at length one of them fairly gave way : fortu- 
nately it fell outward, so it did us no hurt ; but 
my master and I sprang up, as did all the peo- 
ple of the house, and made the best of our way 
out, passing the rest of the night in the open 
air. 

" The inhabitants generally build their houses 
within the walls of the ruined buildings, and it 
has a strange appearance to see such poor mud 
cottages supported against the walls of these 
magnificent temples and palaces. 

" As we stopped at the different towns on our 
way up the river, my master very often paid a 
visit to the sheik, or chief governor of the place, 
and he usually allowed me to attend him. A 
few days after we left Thebes, we were, for a 
day or two, at the town of Edfore, and went to 
wait upon the sheik. My master had a letter 



110 TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 

of introduction to him, which he received very 
graciously, read it, kissed it, and put it to his 
forehead as a mark of respect. My master 
made him a handsome present, according to the 
usual custom, and then requested his protection, 
while he visited the ruins of a fine temple which 
is near the town. The sheik put his hand to his 
forehead, signifying, ' Your safety be upon my 
head,' and then accompanied us to the temple. 
Here a circumstance occurred which showed us 
what a regard these people have for their word. 
A number of persons having assembled around 
us, while I w^s standing in the crowd a young 
lad snatched out of my hand a book I was carry- 
ing, and ran away with it. I was going to fly 
after him, but my master forbade me, fearing 
lest we should get into a quarrel, by interfering 
about it ; the sheik, however, saw what had 
happened, threw off his long robe, and ran after 
the young man, as fast as he could, but did not 
overtake him, which I am sure was fortunate, 
for they all said he would have killed him, if 
he had caught him, though he was his own ne- 
phew. However, the story is but trifling, and 
would not be worth telling, only that in the 
evening my master was informed he should 
have back his book, if he would pay a certain 
sum of money for it, about five shillings. Glad 
to get it, even on these conditions, he readily 
gave it, and received the book. The next 
morning, when we were some hours on our 
journey, we were followed by a son of the 
sheik, who told us his father had just learned 



TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 113 

that we had been obliged to pay for the book ; 
that he was extremely indignant that a stranger, 
to whom he had promised his protection, should 
have been so ill treated, and he therefore begged 
of my master to accept of his money back again ; 
wished him a safe journey, and sent him a letter 
of introduction to a neighbouring sheik. We 
had travelled many hundred miles, and might 
travel as many more, without meeting with such 
an instance of true honesty. And as my mas- 
ter said to me, there was something so upright 
in it that it might well give a lesson even to 
the wisest and the best of us. Indeed he was 
always ready to give me a word of advice ; and 
often told me how much it was in our power to 
improve ourselves by trying to avoid the faults 
we see in others. ' Why, sir,' said I, ' when I 
see good in other people, I would try to follow 
it myself.' ' Yes,' says he, ' and when you 
see faults in others, can't you also try to avoid 
them yourself ? One is just as easy as the other, 
and both are equally our duty.' 

" But to go on with my story. You will ob- 
serve we were not now travelling by water ; 
the town which we had just left was three miles 
from the shore, on the east side of the river ; — 
our good sheik had provided us with camels, 
and every thing necessary to our journey, as my 
master's intention was to proceed for some miles 
along that side of the river, and then cross over 
to the opposite bank. The country we were 
now in was highly cultivated, and we thought 
we should make our journey well ; but the very 
8 



114 TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 

next day as we travelled the face of the country 
changed by degrees, until at length a wide stretch 
of desert lay before us, extending to within 
three-fourths of a mile of the river. The heat 
became intense ; there was no water to be had, 
and we began to suffer severely from thirst ; so 
we immediately changed our road, and came 
down directly to the river, pursued our course 
again by water, and did not land until we came 
to the Island of Elephantina, which lies a little 
below the town of Assuan, and of which the soil 
is so good and the vegetation so rich that it is 
called by the natives 'Flowery Island.' Its in- 
habitants are an humble and courteous people ; 
they treated us with great hospitality, and were 
thankful for some trifling presents which my 
master left with them. In that country no civil- 
ity is ever received by a stranger without his 
making some present in return for it : the poor 
expect it from him as a favour, the rich demand 
it as a right. When we arrived at the town of 
Devie, a little farther up the river, the sheik to 
whom my master had the letter of introduction, 
required him to make him a present of his sword ; 
unwilling to part with it, he offered him a watch; 
he took it in his hand, examined it, thanked 
him, but refused to keep it, saying it would be 
of no use to him : in which, indeed, he was 
right enough ; for of what value could such a 
curious piece of work be to one who could not 
understand even for what purpose it was made. 
As it was my master's interest, both for our safety 
and for the furtherance of our journey, to be in 



TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 115 

good favour with him, he was obliged reluctant- 
ly to take off his own sword, (for he always 
wore a military dress, for the sake of protection,) 
and respectfully throwing the belt over the 
shoulder of the sheik, to beg his acceptance of 
it. Nothing could exceed his joy and his gra- 
titude, and he promised to do any thing in his 
power to serve us ; nor can I ever forget that 
he offered my master a present of a slave in 
return. My poor master, (who w^as humanity 
itself,) as you may well conceive, shrunk at the 
thoughts of such a thing — but in that country it 
is nothing unusual ; though, for my part, I never 
could become used to seeing poor human crea- 
tures made such vile use of, just as if they 
were not of the same flesh and blood as our- 
selves. I was told, that in one part of x\frica, 
called Dar Kulla, when the inhabitants of the 
neighbouring provinces go there to purchase 
slaves, the chief article they bring with them for 
that purpose is salt ; and for twelve or fifteen 
pounds of that, they will purchase a poor inno- 
cent young creature, of about fourteen years of 
age, whom they will barbarously carry off from 
friends and family, and make undergo the 
severest drudgery in a strange land. Our 
farmers will not put as much labour on their 
cattle, nor give them as much ill usage, as I have 
seen these unfortunate creatures obliged to en- 
dure. I declare to you, if there was nothing 
else to make me dislike the country, this, in 
itself, would be enough to drive me from it for 
ever. 



116 TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 

" While we remained here, a caravan was 
setting out from thence for the province of Dar- 
fur ; it was the very thing my master wished 
for, so we joined it. 

" On this journey we had all the suffering 
usual to crossing a desert country, in the hot- 
test season of the year. One poor man, who 
had joined us, and was travelling on foot, came 
up beside my camel one evening, and asked 
me so pitifully for a bit of bread that if it had 
been my last morsel, he should have had it. 
* How long have you been without bread V said 
I. ' Two days,' he answered. ' And how 
long without water V ' I drank water last 
night.' Whatever I had, I shared with him, 
and made him ride, by turns, on my camel, for 
the rest of the journey. We stopped at Cobbe, 
a town in Darfur : it was a market day when 
we arrived, and as the inhabitants of all the 
neighbouring towns and villages, of which there 
is a great number, had come into the market, the 
town was crowded to excess ; it was just the time 
of the year, too, when they lay in their stock of 
corn ; there was, consequently, a great quantity 
of millet for sale, and I saw two and sometimes 
three pecks of that grain sold for the merest 
trifle, frequently for even a string of beads, 
which would not be worth more than a penny 
At Cairo. 

" There are four or five schools here, where 
the children are taught to read and write ; 
and thpse of the poor are instructed free of 
expense. 



TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 117 

" The inhabitants of Cobbe are mostly foreign- 
ers and merchants, who trade with Egypt ; 
some, to be sure, are natives of the country, but, 
for the most part, they are settlers, come from 
about the borders of the Nile. During our 
stay here my master was robbed of a quantity 
of coral, by some of the people about him ; he 
washed to be introduced to the sultan, and to 
lay his complaint before him. One of the chief 
men had assured him, that the sultan would be 
happy to make him amends for any loss he 
sustained Avhile living in his province. This 
made my master the more anxious for the in- 
terview, which was unaccountably delayed, 
from day to day ; at length he was promised 
admission, and desiring me to attend him, we 
went to the palace. We found him in a large 
court-yard, mounted on a white mule ; — he wore 
a long scarlet robe, a turban of white silk, and 
yellow boots. His saddle was of crimson vel- 
vet, his sword very broad in the blade, and he 
sat holding it thrust out straight before him. He 
was a middle-sized man, about fifty, with very 
bright eyes, a thick beard, and his colour per- 
fectly black. In a little while he retired into 
his palace, desiring us to follow him. My 
master thought now was his time, and made 
one of the servants lay before him a present of 
a piece of silk, in his name, thinking it likely 
the sultan would now more readily listen to 
him ; but the other only accepted the present, 
saying, ' May the blessing of God be upon 
you,' which, I am told, is the usual answer, 



118 TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 

and then left the room ; nor could my master 
ever afterward obtain any offer of compensation 
for his loss, except that once the savage sent 
him word that the lost property might be valued 
at about eight and thirty slaves. Upon my 
master declaring he would listen to no such 
terms, the sultan, after a long delay, sent him a 
small sum of money, five camels, and twenty 
oxen, altogether not of more value than one hun- 
dred and twenty piastres, while the coral w^hich 
he had lost was worth seven hundred and fifty. 

" After this, we quitted Darfur, with a caravan, 
going to Abyssinia. I need not describe this 
journey to you ; it was like that of other cara- 
vans, slow and tiresome. After travelling many 
a weary day, we arrived at the borders of Abys- 
sinia. Here we were much amused, by observ- 
ing the great difference between these people 
and any other nation we had yet seen. 

" The poorer inhabitants are quite a distinct 
race from the rest, and are said to be descend- 
ed from the original natives of the country ; 
they live in the open plains under a kind of shady 
hut, which they form for themselves, from a 
large tree, with very long boughs : of these 
long branches they will lop off those that grow 
long down on the stem, and then bending down 
the upper ones to each side, fasten the ends of 
them in tiie ground ; this makes a kind of arch, 
one on each side of the stem, which stands up 
in the middle between them, and looks like a 
support for the whole. Under this shed they 
live, during the dry season of the year, for their 



TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 119 

year is divided into two parts only, the wet and 
the dry season. 

" When the rain is going to set in, these poor 
people quit the open country, carry off with 
them their stores of provisions, and fly to the 
mountains, where they live in caves, until the 
season changes again, when they will come 
out, make up their little dwellings, and live 
there till the wet season comes around again. 

" But there is one dreadful hardship these 
poor harmless people have to undergo, worse 
than any thing else that could happen to them : 
all the governors of the provinces, who hold 
oflices under the king of Abyssinia, are obliged, 
by law, to furnish him with a certain number of 
slaves every year ; they must get them either 
by force or by money, or their lives are to 
answer for it ; and accordingly they come down 
yearly upon these unfortunate creatures, to carry 
them off. The poor people often fly to the 
caves in the mountains, to hide themselves ; but 
whenever they offer the least resistance the 
slaughter is dreadful, for their inhuman assailants 
will not hesitate to put father and mother to 
death, and carry off the children prisoners ; and 
this they will do till their number is complete. 
The age which they prefer in their captives is 
from twelve upward. Except to halt at the 
different towns, we made no stay till we reached 
the town of Gondar ; the caravan went on, but 
we remained. This is a large town ; I was told 
it is three miles long at its greatest length ; the 
houses have all very high thatched roofs, and 



120 TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 

each has trees planted around itj which bear a 
profusion of fine white blossoms, so that in their 
flowering season the whole town appears per- 
fectly white. My master's great object was to 
get to the source of the Nile ; we therefore 
quitted Gondar, and travelled down the western 
side of a large lake, called Tyana. At the end 
of the second day we came to Mescala Christos, 
a large village upon the top of a hill ; here we 
passed the night, and had a fine view of the 
Nile, which was not far from hence, as it flowed 
through the country beneath us. The governor 
'of one of the provinces of Abyssinia was going 
to war with another, and was marching with 
his army through the country at that very time ; 
we feared very much lest we should fall into 
his hands, and thought the best thing we could 
do was to ask his protection. This we did, and 
the consequence was, that he sent us a guide, 
on whose fidelity, he assured us, we might 
safely rely, and gave us every thing else that 
was necessary for our journey. Among other 
things, he sent my master a beautiful gray 
horse, ready bridled and saddled, ' But do not 
ride him,' said he, ' let him be led before you ; 
it is the horse I rode myself yesterday ; and 
whoever meets you will know by him that you 
are under my protection, and will not dare to 
harm you.' We set out with our guide, and 
travelled for some days in a southerly direction, 
crossed the plain called Sacula, and ascended 
a very steep rugged mountain ; this was the 
worst part of our journey ; it was thickly wooded, 



TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 121 

and our feet were greatly torn by thorn bushes, 
and a kind of bramble called the kentufta, which 
is very prickly, and wounds severely. From 
the top of the mountain we saw the Nile wind- 
ing below, but it was only like a small stream, 
with scarcely water enough to have turned a 
mill. About half a mile off was a mountain, 
called Geesh, at the foot of which our guide 
told us we should see the source. For my own 
part, I did long to see it, and thought it must be 
something wonderful, and my master was all 
impatience. As we descended into the plain, 
which lay before us, and through which the 
river ran, he called out to the guide, ' As you 
value your life, show me where the spring is 
from which the Nile flows.' The guide, asto- 
nished at his earnestness, pointed out a small 
green hillock, which lay a little beyond us ; 
' In that,' said he, ' are the two fountains of the 
Nile ; but if you approach them, take off* your 
shoes, for such is the custom of the people.' 
My master said nothing, but, throwing oflf his 
shoes, darted off* like lightning from me. I 
flung oflf mine too, and Ibllowed as fast as I 
could fly. We stopped at the fountain, stooped 
down, and each took a draught of the water. 
' Jackson,' said he, * it will be something for you 
to tell, when you return home, that you have 
drunk of the fountain of the Nile.' The very 
name of home, and I in this distant land, flUed 
my mind with tender emotions, and I felt the 
tears start into my eyes. I believe my master 
saw it, for he said, very kindly, to me, ' Come, 



122 TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 

Jackson, come, I liope we shall both see our 
native land yet.' A little while after we turned 
away from the fountain, and proceeded to the 
town of Geesh, which was not more than six 
hundred yards from us ; here we stopped for 
the night, and were most hospitably recei ed 
by the chief of the town. I had almost for- 
gotten to tell you that the religion of the Abys- 
sinians is a corrupt mixture of Christianity 
with Mohammedan and pagan superstitions ; 
and though Christianity was early planted in 
their country, yet the debasing influence of the 
neighbouring Mohammedan and pagan nations 
has left little afnong them but its name. 

" My master's curiosity was now satisfied ; he 
had seen the source of the Nile, and he had 
drunk of the water ; a pleasure, he told me, 
which had been enjoyed by few Europeans be- 
fore us. I own I did not feel so much as he, 
but there is something in doing what few have 
done before you, which makes a man think 
better of himself. I had seen the Nile at its 
greatest breadth ; I could now step over it ; and 
though I don't think the sight was worth all the 
trouble and danger we went through, still I 
remember, with satisfaction, that 1 am one of 
the few who have visited that interesting spot. 
I thought my master had got enough of travel- 
ling, and that he would now be content to take 
the shortest course back to Cairo, whence we 
should sail homeward, but he entertained far 
difTerent views. At one time he was for cross- 
ing Africa, from east to west, arriving at Tom- 



TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 123 

buctoo, and following the river Niger to the sea 
coast ; and he thought, as I had been there be- 
fore, I could be of great assistance to him. 
However, this plan was attended with so many 
dangers, and he could gain so little informa- 
tion from the savage people around him, that^ to 
my great joy, he gave it up. I recollect he put 
the question to one of the chiefs, and got the 
following answer : ' The journey you propose 
is full of danger : don't think more of it ; I will 
answer for you for four days' journey eastward 
from Darfur ; but after that all is wilderness, 
and no man knows if he be to meet a friend or 
a foe.' You will not think it at all wonderful 
that I had no desire to pay a second visit to a 
place where I had suffered so much. His 
next resolution was more agreeable ; it was to 
take a course due east, which he hoped would 
bring us to the Straits of Babelmandel, by which 
the Red Sea is joined to the Indian Ocean, and 
we therefore busily set about getting all the in- 
formation the people could give us, and making 
the necessary preparation for our departure. 
Once arrived at the straits, we were to be 
guided by circumstances ; his wish was to meet 
a ship which would be sailing south, along the 
eastern coast of Africa, and thus to reach the 
Cape of Good Hope, which is the most southern 
part of the African continent. At the worst, he 
was tolerably sure of getting a passage in one 
of the vessels which go up the Red Sea, and 
carry the merchandise of India to the Isthmus 
of Suez. Accordingly, in a few days we set out, 



124 . TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 

attended by a strong party of slaves, Avho were 
novi^ returning from Gondar. Nothing remark- 
able occurred for the first three days, but on the 
fourth we were passing through a country full 
of wild beasts. My master and I joined a party 
who were going to hunt the elephant. Every 
one was mounted on horseback. We were about 
thirty in number, and set out an hour before 
daybreak. Some of the men, who were elephant 
hunters by profession, rode double, that is to 
say, two on each horse. These are light, active 
fellows : and as soon as we came up with an 
elephant, they advanced, to close in upon him. 
Two of them then (who are mounted on tlje one 
horse) will get before him, and prevent him from 
making his escape, by facing him, and crossing 
his path from side to side, whichever way he 
turns. The poor animal, exasperated by the 
interruption, tries to revenge himself on the 
horse, but this the rider dexterously avoids ; at 
length the man who is riding hindmost slips 
down off the horse, and, getting behind the 
elephant, with his sword cuts the back sinews 
of his heel across ; this completely disables him; 
he is unable to advance a step ; the hunters all 
press forward on him, and quickly put him to 
death with their javelins. After he is killed, 
his flesh is cut into long thin pieces, about the 
thickness of a man's finger, and the natives 
hang it up, dry it, and use it for food during the 
wet season. I have seen it hanging on the 
boughs of trees, beside the shady huts I have 
described them living in, and for a long time 



TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 125 

could not think what it was they always had 
there, nor what use such a hard tough sub- 
stance could be — and hard enough it is — for, 
though in cooking it they pound and beat it 
with a wooden mallet, then boil, and afterward 
lay it on the fire to roast, as we do potatoes, 
yet, after all, it is Httle better than a stick. 

" After these delays, we proceeded directly 
forward, nor stopped till we reached the sea. 
We were many days longer on our journey than 
we expected, having been advised, instead of 
going to the Straits, to make for a town called 
Berbera, upon the coast, where a large fair 
is held every year, and is attended by caravans, 
who come from a great distance inland. One 
of them we met on our journey ; and as my 
master's visit to the springs of the Nile had made 
his name known to some of the principal men 
of the caravan, they readily gave us protection. 
Berbera is the principal town of the Somanli, 
who are a very active and industrious race ; 
my master told me they trafficked with foreign 
countries, selling gum, myrrh, and other things 
of that kind, and he was, therefore, not without 
hope of finding a vessel that would take us 
aboard, — nor was he disappointed. We found a 
French merchantman there, which was going 
to sail in a few days for Fort Dauphiny, in 
the southern part of Madagascar, a very large 
island which is separated from the east coast 
of Africa by the channel of Mosambique. The 
captain said he intended to touch at two places 
on the coast of Africa, and hoped my master 



126 TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 

would not object to the delay ; but he little knew 
my master's plan, for it was the very thing to 
give him pleasure. Having set sail, it now 
appeared as if every thing was to favour us ; 
the wind was fair, the weather moderate, and 
in due time we reached Quiloa. This had 
been once the chief town* in this part of Africa 
(which is called Zanguebar) for from it the Por- 
tuguese used to get their slaves ; and the mer- 
chants, who used to deal in human flesh, lived 
there. We heard that ten thousand was for- 
merly the number annually exported, it has now 
sunk to a few hundreds. From Quiloa we went 
to Mosambique, which lies also on the coast, 
but considerably to the south. This is a settle- 
ment belonging to Portugal, which trades with 
the natives for gold and elephants' teeth." 

" That must be a fine country where gold is 
to be bought ; of course it is very cheap ?" said 
old Jackson. " x\s cheap, sir, as you could de- 
sire it. About one hundred years ago, the na- 
tives on receiving toys and glass beads, dug a 
hole in the ground, into which they put these 
articles : then, taking them out, they filled the 
same hole with gold dust, and gave it in ex- 
change. Elephants' teeth, which give the ivory, 
was bartered for the same bulk in cloth; but the 
price of these things was much higher when I 
was there ; however, you should not be too 
ready to think a country happy because gold is 
cheap. If gold in Mosambique was as plenty 
as coals with us, I should think it dear. The 
gold might be exchanged for a very small sum 



TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 127 

of money, but you would also have to pay your 
life into the bargain. Would you believe that 
robbers, whom the Portuguese sentence to death, 
are often, as a milder punishment, transported to 
Mosambique, where five or six years is thought 
a long life. I saw a fort there, with a great 
many pieces of cannon, but they were quite un- 
fit for service. In the house where the governor 
lived my master dined, and there was a great 
appearance of riches.. Tea was served in cups 
and saucers of pure gold, and the negro attend- 
ants wore a great many ornaments of the same 
metal. 

I saw at Mosambique some natives of Ma- 
pooa, a very large district inland. They are a 
very strong made people, and have a fine look. 
They adorn tl;ieir skin by tattooing it, that is, 
marking it with great scars, and the welts they 
thus make often rise considerably above the 
skin. They file their teeth to a point, so as to 
give the whole set the appearance of a coarse 
saw. They wear their hair in very strange 
shapes — sometimes showing one side, some- 
times both sides, with a crest stretching across 
from the brow to the neck ; sometimes leaving 
only a tuft on the top. More inland than 
these, (indeed, I was told it was a journey 
of forty days to arrive there,) lived the Mon- 
jou ; — these are negroes of a deep shining 
black, with high cheek-bones, and small tufts 
of woolly hair on their heads. This was all 
the information we were able to gain by a stay 
of a fortnight at Mosambique*; 1 was, therefore, 



i28 TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 

glad enough when the captain told us the A'es- 
sel was ready to sail. He had taken in a quan- 
tity of gold dust' and ivory, which the natives 
exchange for salt, shells, tobacco, and beaver 
cloth ; so we weighed anchor, and set the helm 
for sailing around the south of Madagascar, to 
Port Dauphiny. For some days we proceeded 
as favourably as we could wish, and nothing 
remarkable happened until we had reached the 
latitude which was necessary for doubling the 
island. It then, however, began to blow a gale, 
which for five days continued to increase. I 
had been in a storm before, but it was nothing 
compared to the violence of this. At one time 
the ship was raised on a mountain of water, ancl 
the next instant plunged into a depth from which 
she was raised again to the clouds by the next 
wave. We had several mishaps ; a sudden 
shift of the wind tore away our rudder, carried 
away the main yard, and obliged us to drive 
before the wind on bare poles, for some 
time, but there was no actual danger. Our 
ship was sound, the captain a skilful seaman, 
and we had plenty of sea room : however, one 
evil attended it, we were driven out of our 
course. Nor, though we soon repaired the 
helm, could we for a moment think of putting 
about, till we had reached the latitude of 30^ 
south, and 35° east longitude. This was op- 
posite the coast of CafFraria, not very far from 
the Cape of Good Hope, — that is, though it was 
many days' journey to the Cape, my master 
had hopes, if set ashore, of reaching it in safety. 



TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 129 

He therefore said to the captain, * If you go 
direct to Port Bourbon, I must take my passage 
from that to the Cape of Good Hope, and per- 
haps may be obliged to wait some time before 
an opportunity offers. We are now, according 
to your reckoning, little more than one hundred 
and fifty miles from the coast of Caffraria : 
draw near the land, and set me and my servant 
ashore, and I will make it worth your while.' 
When two honest men come together they are 
seldom long in striking a bargain : — one says 
what he expects to receive, the other what he 
thinks it right to give ; and as both are men 
of conscience, they have no huckstering. Be- 
hold us then seated in the long boat, quitting 
the ship with all our baggage, and about to land 
in a part of Africa where but few Europeans 
have ever been. As we approached the land, 
we could see a number of natives who had col- 
lected together at the sight of a boat. They 
were armed with spears, and accompanied by 
dogs, but when my master stood up in the boat 
and waved a white handkerchief, they at once 
laid aside their arms, and made signs to show 
us where we might land in safety. They then 
surrounded us with great appearance of curio- 
sity, desirous of knowing our intentions, but 
with great kindness. We should have found it 
difficult to let them know our wishes, if there 
had not been in the boat's crew a Dutchman 
who understood French, and among the Caf- 
fres a Hottentot who spoke Dutch. In this 
way, therefore-, my master's wishes were made 
9 



130 TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 

known to them, and tliey agreed, for a stated 
reward to be paid them at the Cape, to con- 
duct us there in safety. Every thing being 
thus settled, the boat returned to the vessel, the 
men having received some valuable marks of 
my master's good will. Indeed I should men- 
tion to you, that my master always took care to 
. have the means of rewarding those whom he 
found it necessary to ask for assistance, sup- 
plying himself with trinkets of various kinds, 
which were easily carried by him, and could 
also be easily turned into money by those to 
whom he gave them. It was the month of June, 
which is the depth of winter in that country, the 
natives therefore soon kindled a fire of dried 
bushes, by whirling briskly a pointed stick 
against another piece laid flat on the ground, 
and having a hole in it, to receive the pointed 
stick, they then presented us with a bullock, 
which we were obliged to roast whole, our 
hosts stopping to take share of their own gift. 
On the next morning we set out with two 
guides and a party, who were to conduct us to 
the nearest settlement of Europeans. Our road 
lay through a country wooded on all sides, as 
far as the eye could reach. The cattle also ap- 
peared in such numbers as to defy calculation, 
and they were equal in condition to the best-fed 
oxen I have ever seen in our Dublin markets. We 
sa\y no sheep, nor could we observe any marks 
of farming work going on. The surrounding 
country was of great extent, bounded by moun- 
tains. Our guides explained to us, that we 




Residence of a horde of Caffres. 



TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 133 

could, on no account, travel early, as the wild 
beasts, with which the country abounds, rise 
with the sun, and then range the desert in quest 
of prey. In our course we struck inland, for 
the purpose of getting fresh water, that on the 
coast being generally brackish. Having gone 
about thirty-five miles the second day, we wish- 
ed to rest for the night, for my master was very 
much tired. Our guides told us that the place 
was the haunt of leopards, and if they scented us 
out, nothing could prevent them from destroying 
some of us. We made our fire larger, therefore, 
and began to consult on the best way of guard- 
ing against danger, when sleep overcame us, and 
we remained quiet till the next morning, not- 
withstanding the danger with which we were 
threatened. No sooner, however, was the sun 
risen than we saw how well grounded was the 
precaution of our guides. On every side we saw 
the tracks of lions, tigers, and elephants, and 
had not the goodness of Providence saved us, 
we should inevitably have been torn to pieces. 

" At noon of that day we came up with a 
horde of Caffres, that were said by our guides 
to belong to a bad tribe, and presently after we 
were stopped by twelve of them, armed with 
spears, and clothed in leopard skins : one of 
them came up to me and attemped to snatch a 
knife, which I had slung over my shoulder ; 
this, however, I stoutly resisted, which threw 
him into such a rage that he raised his lance 
apparently to kill me. He wore a leopard's 
skin, his black face was daubed with red 



134 TRAVEL3 IN AFRICA. 

ochre, his eyes seemed starting from their sock- 
ets, and he gnashed his teeth. In short, if I 
was incHned to be passionate, I think his ap- 
pearance would have completely cured me. 
That must be very sinful, thought I, which can 
make a man so unlike any thing human : fortu- 
nately, another chief came up, who turned aside 
the point of his weapon, and making signs to 
me to give him the knife, he told us to cross 
the river, which lay before us, as quietly as 
possible. This was the boundary of the 
CafFres' country, and south of it wp were safe 
from these people. In this way we still kept 
advancing by da)^, at night making a barricade 
against the wild animals, and lighting all around 
us prodigious fires. Our sleep, however, was 
disturbed by a herd of elephants brushing through 
a neighbouring wood, and trampling with their 
monstrous feet on every thing that stood in 
their way ; but this was not our only cause for 
terror ; we had to pass through a part of the 
Bushmen's territory, who live by plunder, and 
attack, with poisoned arrows, such as come in 
their way : these are a very small race of men, 
not more than four feet and a half high, but un- 
commonly strong and active. The Caffres, 
whom we had just left, are seldom less than 
five feet eight inches high, and are remarkably 
well made : their colour is nearly black, and 
they have neither the thick lip, nor the woolly 
hair of the Negro, but the Bushmens are low, ill 
made, and have very ugly countenances. Their 
clothing is merely the raw skin of a sheep or a 



TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 135 

goat, which is fastened on by a belt. They 
wear around their ancles thongs of raw skin, 
but their hair is unUke that of any other human 
beings, not covering the whole head, but grow- 
ing in little separate tufts here and there." 

" Did your master ever ask your guides what 
was the cause of this difference ?" 

" He did, but the answer did not seem to sa- 
tisfy him. The guides said that it was always 
so, — that their parents had been so before them; 
but my master thought it more likely that hun- 
ger and cold had so stunted their growth, — for 
having no disposition to settle dow^n to a quiet 
life and till the ground for their food, but choos- 
ing rather to live by plunder, they are driven 
from the more fertile parts of the valley, and 
obliged to take shelter in the high lands, where 
food is very scarce. They sometimes collect 
in parties of thirty or forty, said our guides, and 
attack the farmers' cattle. On these occasions 
they carry a small bow and quiver full of poi- 
soned arrows, which, w^hen they are actually 
fighting, they stick in a band of sheep-skin 
around the head. If they are successful in car- 
rying off any cattle, they quickly cut them up, 
and make a feast, which collects all the carrion 
crows, kites, and vultures, within a great dis- 
tance ; indeed, it is by this that the farmer knows 
the road he is. to take in pursuit. When they 
fail in their plundering expeditions, they pursue 
the larger kinds of game, some drive them into 
narrow passes, where others are waiting to 
strike them with their poisoned arrows. Some- 



136 TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 

times they dig pit-falls, which they cover over 
with earth or grass ; and when all their endea- 
vours fail, they are obliged to feed on ants' eggs, 
caterpillars, and locusts, with various kinds of 
bitter roots. It is not wonderful, therefore, that 
with such fare their bodies should be insuffi- 
ciently nourished and dwarfish, nor will you 
be surprised, that through the country which 
they infest we were obliged to travel with cir- 
cumspection. Fortunately we met none of 
them, though every now and then our guides 
pointed out spots where they had committed some 
atrocity. In this manner we proceeded for 
some days without observing any thing extraor- 
dinary, when at length one of the guides sudden- 
ly shouted, 'I see a Hottentot guarding sheep.' 
We all immediately hastened to the spot where 
he was, and observed him tending a flock of at 
least four thousand, and in a short time our joy 
was increased by finding ourselves in the farm 
house of a European. He was a Dutchman, 
and certainly did not want the inclination, any 
more than the means, of being hospitable. 

" He was owner of five thousand acres, 
for which he paid no more rent than a farthing 
an acre : yet I should be sorry, if I had but 
one acre at home, to live in so dirty and un- 
comfortable a manner as he did. His house 
contained two rooms, one was kitchen and par- 
lour, and the other the sleeping room ; and they 
were separated by a matted partition. In the 
first we found two fresh-killed sheep, hanging 
near the fire place, while the pool of blood be 



TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 137 

neath them, and everything about showed us they 
wfere not very nice in their way of living. The 
floor was of clay, in the hollows of which were 
splashes of sour milk and mud, and there were 
two holes in the wall for windows, but without 
any glass. In one corner was sitting a hen, in 
another a duck and her young ones, and in a 
third were half a dozen dogs, who every now 
and then began to bark loudly, running out into 
the farm yard, which was ancle deep in mud, 
and returning wet and dirty, and sprinkling us 
all over. Outside the house, at some little dis- 
tance, were several straw huts, where the ser- 
vants lived, and between both, the spacious pen 
in which his cattle were shut up at night, to de- 
fend them from the wild beasts. The dung of 
these pens must have been collecting for years, 
for it rose to the very roof of the house, and, 
perhaps by this time, rises far above it, for he 
never would think of cleaning it away." " O 
Tom, what a nice garden he might have about 
his house with such manure ; what fine fields 
of wheat and potatoes." " That he never dreams 
of ; his cattle find plenty of grazing without his 
taking any trouble, and as for vegetables, he 
never uses them. He lives upon meat at break- 
fast, dinner, and supper ; and, as my master 
said, this sufficiently accounts for his indolence, 
such food always making a man dull and inac- 
tive." " And how far does he live from any 
town w^here he can supply himself with what 
he wants ?" " Why, between five and six hun- 
dred miles, and he is not less than a long day's 



138 TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 

journey from any neighbour." " Well, Tom, 
we may excuse him for not having a garden 
where he has such plenty of food, which, per- 
haps, he likes better ; but I can find no apolo- 
gy for such slovenly habits, and for his total 
neglect of every decency and comfort." " Away 
at such a distance from society, it might be too 
much to expect that his furniture should be very 
nice ; but cleanliness, when there is water at 
hand, is always within our reach ; indeed, I 
wonder he would not himself feel it much more 
comfortable, as I am sure it is more health- 
ful to be clean than dirty. And yet, though the 
distance is so great, he often sets out for th^ 
Cape with his large wagon, drawn by oxen, and 
filled with butter, soap, (which he manufactures 
himself from the fat of the animals he kills,) os- 
trich feathers, the skins of wild beasts, and the 
potash which he provides by burning vegetables, 
which he exchanges for a little coffee, brandy, 
and gunpowder." " Well, Tom, as he brings 
soap to such a distant market, it is to be sup- 
posed he uses a little of it on himself?" '' Not 
a bit, judging from his appearance : he has the 
heavy look of indolence — his person is bulky 
and unwieldy, and all his motions slow. ' His 
dress is a loose unbuttoned jacket, like a sailor's, 
which he hangs over his shoulders ; it would 
be hard to say of what colour is his shirt, and 
as he wears his collar always open, you see his 
sun-burned neck and breast ; his breeches are 
made of undressed skin, as well as his shoes ; 
stockings he never uses, and, to crown all, has 



TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 139 

an enormous hat, with his tobacco pipe stuck 
in the band of it, except when in his mouth, 
wliich is more frequently the case." 

" And what sort of people are the Hottentots, 
Tom ? You know we have it as a nickname 
for any one who is very uncivil in his man- 
ners." 

" We cannot expect them to be like us, 
father, since they have not had our advantages, 
but as a nickname, it might as well be given to 
every uncivilized people. They were formerly 
the original owners of the country, and were 
very numerous ; but having either been driven 
out by the Dutch, when they took possession 
of the country, or reduced to slavery, there are 
not now more than twenty thousand in the 
whole colony. Nothing could equal the cruelty 
with which the planters used to treat them ; a 
severe whipping was the punishment for the 
slightest fault, and the flogging was not deter- 
mined by the number of lashes, but by the pipes 
their masters smoked during the operation. 
Poor creatures, my master told me they used to 
be worked hard, had bad fare, were treated 
more like beasts than men, until a short time 
before we were there, when the British, getting 
possession of the Cape, did away slavery, and 
encouraged them to come and settle near the 
Cape. They are found to be mild, honest, and 
faithful. They are, indeed, very timid, but my 
master said that was caused by the cruelty of 
their former masters. They were generally 
thought to be a stupid race, but lately the go- 



140 TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 

vemor formed a number of them into a regiment, 
and they proved not only as well behaved as the 
British soldiers, but as cleanly : their clothes, 
arms, and their persons being a^ neat and in as 
good order as any I ever saw." " And yet, 
Tom, I recollect myself to have heard that they 
were a filthy people, daubing their bodies all 
over with grease." "You heard what was very 
true — their habits were very dirty, but my mas- 
ter said we should remember they had never 
been taught better ; they used to cut their meat 
into strips, a yard or two long, and slightly 
warming them over the fire, they ate them as 
we would a radish. The grease they rub over 
their bodies to protect them from the sun and 
from insects, but the, readiness they now show 
to get rid of their sheep-skin clothes, and to 
keep their persons clean, shows that it was 
only the neglect and severity of the European 
settlers, and the want of water, which made 
them so dirty. When young, they are by no 
means ill-looking; but as they grow old, both 
men and women, the latter especially, lose their 
shape, and become remarkably fat. It is true, 
they are so very indolent that even hunger 
sometimes will not rouse them, and yet so kind 
and affectionate at the same time are they as 
to share their last morsel with a companion. — 
But to return to my story, from which I have 
wandered so far. The trees around the farmer's 
house were hung with the skins of almost every 
kind of wild animals ; lions, tigers, panthers, 
and elephants, which he had killed in the neigh- 



TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 141 

bourhood : for a farmer never stirs abroad with- 
out an enormous musket ; and so expert a marks- 
man is he that he seldom fails to bring down 
his object with a single ball. The old man 
bore many a mark of the dangers he was ex- 
posed to, and entertained us very much by the 
account of his escapes. When about forty 
years of age, he shot a lion in a narrow pass of 
a wood, which immediately fell without his ob- 
serving that there were two together. The 
other lion rushed instantly upon him before he 
had time to reload his piece, and not only 
wounded him with his sharp claws, but tore 
him in such a dreadful manner that he lay 
senseless. The lion, it is said, does not man- 
gle a body which it supposes dead, except when 
obliged by hunger ; it therefore left him, and he 
was shortlyafter carried home by his servants. 
When we saw him he was in perfect health, 
but he never recovered the use of his arm. He 
still, however, could fire his musket, and told us 
that in travelling from the Cape he has often 
killed four or five elephants. ' I always aim,' 
said he, 'at the breast, and generally kill the 
animal in one shot ; but should I hit it in either 
of the fore legs, so as to break it, I must fire 
sgain.' 

" He told us another story of himself, which 
was well worth hearing. It will show how cool 
and steady these men become by long practice 
with the gun, and being used to meet with wild 
beasts. It was about a couple of years before he 
met with the accident that lamed him, that his 



142 TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 

wife was sitting within the house, near the door, 
the children playing about her, and he himself 
outside, mending one of his wagons, when, 
suddenly, though it was about twelve o'clock in 
the day, a very large lion came up, and laid 
himself down quietly in the shade, upon the very 
threshhold of the door. His wife, frightened 
almost to death, and knowing the danger of 
making any attempt to fly, remained in her chair, 
without moving, and the children hid themselves 
in her lap. Their cry drew the farmer's atten- 
tion, and he ran toward the door ; but think 
how great must have been his astonishment 
when he found the lion lying right across it 
Although the animal had not seen him, it seemed 
impossible to escape, unarmed as he was. He 
had thought enough, however, to creep gently 
to the side of the house, to the window of his 
room, where, fortunately, he had set his loaded 
gun that morning ; but the opening was too 
small for him to get in by ; the door of the room, 
however, was open, so that he could see the 
lion's motions. At that moment it w^as begin- 
ning to stir, perhaps with the design of making 
a spring upon his wife and children. There 
was no time to be lost; so he said softly to the 
mother not to be alarmed, and calling upon the 
Almighty, fired his piece. The ball passed 
directly over the hair of the eldest boy's head, 
and lodged in the forehead of the lion imme- 
diately above his eyes, stretching him on the 
ground, so that he never stirred more. 

The next morning our kind host provided my 



TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 143 

master with a wagon, two sets of oxen, eight 
in each set, a couple of Hottentot drivers, to- 
gether with provisions enough to serve us the 
better part of our journey. On our road, many 
places were pointed out to us as the particulai 
haunt of wild beasts ; but though dreadful to 
a European, they are less formidable than a 
Bushman to a Hottentot. At our next resting 
place, I had an opportunity of seeing one of 
these Bushmen, who had been taken prisoner, 
when an infant, by one of the colony, and 
brought up at his house. He was now twenty- 
five years old, and not more that four feet two 
inches high. His make was strong and clumsy, 
but no greyhound could be swifter in running 
When the number of Bushmen is strong enough 
they attack the Hottentots andCaffrarians when- 
ever they meet them. They use a bow and ar- 
rows ; the latter dipped in such a mortal poison 
that I was told nothing could cure the wound. 

" In about sixteen days after we found our- 
selves among our countrymen. You know how 
long I had been a stranger to them, and may 
well believe with what joy I saw the soldiers 
mounting guard before the governor's house, 
and heard my own language spoken by almost 
every one about me. Need I say that I did 
not forget to return thanks to that almighty 
Being who had preserved me from so many 
secret and open dangers, and had given me 
strength to bear up under such cruel sufferings, 
and brought me safe out of a land of bondage 
I thought of you, father, and of my mother ; and, 



144 TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 

though I was still many thousand miles from you, 
I felt as if my arrival among my countrymen 
had brought me many a day's journey nearer to 
home. 

" Capetown is built on the side of two hills : 
one is called the Table Mountain, and the other 
the Lion Mountain. We were glad to get into 
a town with wide streets again ; but the thatched 
roofs gave the houses the oddest appearance ; 
and these are not made with straw, like ours, 
but with reeds and rushes. I was told they 
cannot use tiled or slated roofs, on account of 
the hurricanes ; as, when they are blown off by 
a storm, they do a great deal of damage in fall- 
ing. The town contains about one thousand 
one hundred houses, which are built with great 
regularity. The chief want the inhabitants 
suffer, is a scarcity of wood, either for building 
or for firing. Indeed, for the latter purpose, the 
more wealthy families keep a slave, whose sole 
business it is to gather fagots on the neighbour- 
ing mountains. Their tables are well supplied 
with butchers' meat, fresh game, and fruit. 
My master was anxious to make some short 
journeys up the country, and hired strong 
covered wagons, which is the- usual mode of 
conveyance here for travellers. They were 
furnished with every thing necessary for our 
accommodation on the road ; mattresses, vessels 
for cooking our food, gunpowder, tea, coffee, 
and a great quantity of such things as might be 
required for making presents to the natives, 
such as beads, toys, trinkets, &c. These great 



TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 145 

wagons were drawn by ten oxen each, and 
were driven by Hottentots. Before I describe 
our journey, I should tell you something of the 
nature of the country. Behind Capetown rises 
a chain of mountains ; beyond that is another, 
with a valley lying between the two ; and 
farther en still, is another range of mountains, 
and again another valley lies between. These 
valleys are called karroos ; and, after the rainy 
season, become uncommonly beautiful. The 
vegetation at that time is so rich, that they are 
filled with the sweetest flowers, especially in 
the great Karroo, which is the valley that lies 
at the foot of the farthest chain of mountains. 
We took our road first in an easterly direction, 
so as to wind around the mountains. It was a 
matter of the greatest amusement and curiosity 
to us to watch the different kinds of strange- 
looking animals that we met with on this journey. 
There were numerous troops of bubales, ante- 
lopes, and zebras, and a vast number of ostrich- 
es. I am sure, all together, we did not see less 
than between four and five thousand, including 
the different species of each. There is a kind 
of antelope there which much resembles our 
goat, but that it is of a pale blue colour ; they 
are very rare, and we thought ourselves fortu- 
nate to see one on the second day of our jour- 
ney. We passed a mountain called the Pearl 
Berg, which takes its name from a chain of 
large white stones, looking, at a distance, like a 
string of pearls, which goes up the side of the 
mountain, and passes over its summit. One of 
10 



146 TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 

these stones is called by way of distinction, 
the pearl, on account of its size, being four hun- 
dred feet high, and full a mile around. In the 
clefts of this rock a great profusion of plants, 
of different kinds, are growing. The whole 
mountain is thickly covered with vegetation, and 
large flights of a beautiful bird called the creep- 
er may be seen hovering over it, come to suck 
the honey from the sugar -maple tree. 

" Near the mountain rivers we often saw great 
numbers of the white pelican, as well as of the 
rose-coloured flamingo, whose wings are used 
as fans for flapping away the flies, which in 
this country swarm dreadfully. Turning around 
a ledge of rocks one day, we encountered a 
troop of not less than four or five hundred large 
black baboons, lying basking in the sun. The 
frightful creatures started up instantly, giving 
the most dreadful howls, and clambered up the 
rocks, as fast as possible. We had now arrived 
at the entrance of the great Karroo — such a 
dreary stretch of barren land as lay before us I 
never in my life saw, except in the African de- 
serts. Not a habitation was to be seen ; the 
ground was parched and burst into a thousand 
cracks by the heat of the sun. There was 
nothing growing there of any kind, and we 
found the soil covered with thick brown dust, 
which, upon inquiry, my master told me was 
actually the ashes of withered plants of last 
year, which had been dried and burned by the 
sun, until they were reduced to powder. It 
was well for us that jur wa^^ons were made on 



TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 147 

purpose to serve us for houses to live in, for 
l^iere was not another shelter of any kind to be 
had ; and the very first night we were there 
the wet season set in. My master had no idea 
it was so near at hand. Such rain as fell, you 
can have no idea of. Fortunately we had pro- 
visions enough with us ; for, I am sure, this 
barren place could not have afforded us a 
mouthful. And now, during the rain, we could 
not put our heads outside the wagon roofs ; we 
found tolerable shelter, however, under the rocks 
for the cattle ; and, as to our Hottentot drivers, 
they ran up the mountains, and hid in caves, 
until the rains should cease ; my master giving 
to each a portion of food, to carry away with 
him, and they in return promising faithfully to 
come back to him ; which indeed they did to a 
man. 

" In a few days the rain became, by degrees, 
less and less violent ; soon it ceased, and it was 
really curious to see the rapid progress of ve- 
getation, appearing over the same ground that 
a short time before was so dry and barren. In 
a little while the whole place appeared green 
and fresh : day after day the plants sprang up 
thicker and " thicker : their buds burst, their 
leaves spread, and their blossoms began to appear ; 
the warmth of the sun soon brought them into 
full bloom, and in a day or two more the whole 
place was like one great garden. The air was 
so sweet, and the thousands and thousands of 
flowers, of every colour in the rainbow, that 
were there, I thought the most beautiful sight 



148 TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 

1 ever witnessed in my life. By this time, 
down came all the poor herdsmen, who live 
upon the mountains, glad to feed their cattle 
upon these fresh young herbs ; and it was 
amusing, also, to see the troops of tall os- 
triches come stalking in to look for their share 
of the feast ; the antelopes, likewise, came 
bounding down the mountains to feed ; and so 
busy, and, indeed, so beautiful a scene I could 
not have conceived, — the animals all looked so 
happy — the flowers and herbs so fresh. The 
only thing we had to regret was, that in one 
short month it would- be all over ; for the sun is 
here so powerful that even in that space of 
time the flowers begin to fade again. How- 
ever, I should tell you how the wisdom and 
goodness of God have provided a still farther 
supply for these poor parched animals, who 
have been living upon dry mountain food for 
eleven months of the year. Even after the 
green herbs begin to fail them in the Karroo, 
there still remain several kinds of very juicy 
plants, which do not fade so soon as the 
others ; and, among them, one shrub, which 
gives a kind of milky juice, that quenches 
their thirst, and is, besides, very nourishing. 
I am told that each of these shrubs affords 
not less than a pint of liquor. 

" You may well suppose my master had no 
mind to stay and see this delightful scene fade 
away. Just as it was beginging to change, we 
quitted it for ever, and took our road back again 
10 Capetown. Nothing remarkable occurred 



TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 149 

until we were about half way on our journey, 
when I observed to my master that the drivers 
werr not now returning by the same way they 
had come. ' I have given them orders to that 
eifect,' said he ; ' I wish to visit a village 
which lies in this direction, and which is, in- 
deed, worth every one's going to see. I in- 
quired why, and he told me the spot where it 
stands was formerly a perfect wilderness ; and 
that he would now find there a thriving village, 
containing two hundred and fifty-six cottages 
and tents, and near one thousand three hundred 
Hottentot inhabitants ; all cleanly, active, in- 
dustrious, and pious. • I told you before,' said 
he, ' that these poor ignorant people were well 
disposed, and easily led aright, if they had but 
instruction ; and now I will show you the truth 
of this : — A few years ago, some ^ious good 
men quitted England for this country, deter- 
mined to try what they could do among the 
Hottentots. They settled themselves here, and 
collected a few of these people about them. By 
degrees they induced them to build houses, and 
to give up the wild kind of life to which they 
had been accustomed ; soon the good example 
began to spread, some more joined them, and, 
in a while longer, they were seen flocking into 
the town. The number of houses increased 
with the inhabitants. These good men next 
began to teach them different trades ; tried to 
make them know the comforts and the blessings 
of honest industry ; and, above all, did not fail 
to give them every instruction in religion. Such 



150 TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 

(said he) is the account I have heard of this vil- 
lage, but we shall presently see it ourselves.' 
We soon after entered it, and it was delightful 
to see a people living so comfortably and so 
peaceably together ; — every cottage has its gar- 
den, and it is a sure sign of the industry of its 
owner when this looks clean and in good order. 
A few of the poorer class still clothe themselves 
in sheep skins ; but those who have learned a 
trade, and who are industrious, pride themselves 
on having jackets and trowsers, and other arti- 
cles of European dress, which they always wear 
on Sundays. The women had Woollen petti- 
coats, cotton jackets with long sleeves, and 
either wear caps, or a head dress made with 
handkerchiefs neatly folded around and around 
their heads ; and if you go into their cottages 
at meal times, you will always find them say 
grace, both before and after eating. There is a 
church at the head of every street, and their 
clergy all live together in one large house in the 
town, and set a good example of industry to the 
people, by working in their own garden ; ay, 
and by going every day to oversee the labour 
done in the different manufactories. The prin- 
cipal trades that I saw carried on there were 
those in iron work ; especially the manufacture 
of knives, at which the Hottentots had become 
very expert. The people have also been taught 
something of agriculture ; and there are water- 
mills in the town, to which all the corn is 
brought for grinding , and I was told that the 
quantity that passes through these mills every 



TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 151 

year was more than enough for. the support 
of the whole town. The people are,^ you 
may suppose, greatly attached -to their good 
protectors and instructers. While we were 
there, one of these gentlemen left it for Eng- 
land ; and nothing could equal the grief of the 
people at parting from him — numbers of them 
pressed forward, offering him some little gift as 
a keep-sake, and entreating him to return again 
to them : the children of the different schools 
cried bitterly, and when at last he stepped into 
the wagon, the inhabitants of the town crowded 
around it, and as he slowly drove away, up- 
ward of two hundred voices sang at once a 
farewell hymn to him.* 

" We quitted this place next morning, and 
continued our road, without interruption, till we 
got back again to Capetown." 

" Well, Tom, your master was, I suppose, 
willing now to return to Europe. iVfter seeing 
so much, he was glad, I suspect, to return to 
the comforts of home. A good bed, a clean 
table cloth, and a decent meal, are not, perhaps, 
enough valued by those who know not what it 
is to want them ; but that was neither his case 
nor yours." 

" I confess honestly, father, I began to cast 

* The various missionary societies are doing much good 
in this country. In 1831 the Moravians had six mission- 
ary stations, thirty-six missionaries, and nearly three 
thousand converts. The London Missionary Society had 
then twenty missionaries, and six hundred and twenty-one 
native communicants. The Wesleyan Missionary Society 
had fifteen missionaries besides assistants. — Am. Ed. , 



152 TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 

a longing look toward home. I had traversed 
the deep, climbed mountains, crossed rivers, 
and seen the source of the Nile. I had seen 
quite enough to satisfy me ; but it was not so 
with my master ; as long as the Almighty gave 
him health and strength, he was resolved to 
visit those parts of Africa which he had not as 
yet seen ; and when he asked me if I would be 
content to leave him, I could not answer yes. 
' There is a vessel,' said he, ' in the bay, 
which sails in a week for the Gambia River, 
between five and six hundred miles from the 
place where the Caledonia was wrecked. It 
is the place from which the greater part of 
those negroes who are slaves in the sugar 
islands in the West Indies have been brought. 
And I have, also, anotherreason, that is, to dis- 
cover the source of the great river Niger ; 
which, although many have succeeded in tra- 
cing for a great way, they have never been able 
to follow to its termination. Some think it runs 
into the great desert, and is lost in the sand ; 
others, that the Zaire is the river by which it 
discharges itself into the sea. And again there 
are a great many very wise men who think it 
joins one of the arms of the river Nile. Which 
of these opinions is the just one, I am unable 
to say ; but I am resolved, if possible, to find it 
out ; and I have engaged a passage in her for 
us both. She goes afterward to England, so 
that, if you wish, you may continue your voyage 
homeward, but I have great hopes you will not 
refuse to stay with me. That part of Africa 



TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 153 

once explored, my own intention is to return 
to England, and you may depend on my mak- 
ing an addition to your wages, which I am 
glad you have never drawn from me. It will 
make a handsome some of money when you 
go back to your father's cottage.' The end 
of it was, I promised not to leave him ; so 
immediately I began to prepare for our depart- 
ure. 

" On the day appointed, we set sail, and, 
after as favourable a voyage as could be de- 
sired, though you must not suppose the distance 
short, for it was above three thousand miles, 
we anchored at Jillifree, a town on the north 
bank of the Gambia, and two days after sailed 
up the river to Vintain, where we found a great 
trade carrying on with the natives for bees' 
wax, which is collected in the woods by the 
Feloops, a wild race of people. In the river 
we saw alligators, and also the hippopotamus, 
which, though not so tall as the elephant, is 
much longer, and more bulky. At Pisania, 
higher up the river, my master stopped a few 
days with so*me English merchants who re- 
sided there, with their black servants ; from 
them he collected the necessary information for 
his journey ; and, finding that he had arrived 
at the proper time for undertaking it, the rainy 
season being just now over, we set forward, 
my master and I being provided with horses, 
while our guides were mo^mted on asses. Our 
baggage consisted of provisions for a few days, 
some amber and tobacco, a compass, a couple 



154 TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 

of fowling pieces, two pair of pistols, and a few 
articles of clothing." 

^' Now that you have brought me among 
new acquaintances, Tom, you must tell me 
how they dress ; of course they don't go naked ?" 

" The dress of both men and women is made 
of cotton cloth, of their own manufacture. That 
of the men is a loose frock, with drawers, which 
come halfway down the leg ; they wear sandals 
on their feet, and white cotton caps on their 
heads. The women's dress is a petticoat, which 
comes down to the ancles, and a cloak, which 
they w^ear over the bosom and shoulders. Near 
the Gambia, the head dress is a bandage of 
cotton cloth, wrapped many times over the fore- 
head ; the head is adorned with strings of white 
beads, with a small plate of gold in the middle 
of the forehead. At Medina we halted some 
days, and found the people not only simple but 
affectionate. My master waited on the king, 
who received him with great kindness. He was 
seated on a mat in front of his hut ; his attend- 
ants, ranged on each side, were singing and 
clapping their hands. My master required per- 
mission, to pass through his country, which the 
king not only granted at once, but told him he 
would offer up prayers for his safety. On this, 
one of the attendants began an Arabic song, and 
at the end of each verse the king himself, and 
all the people present, struck their hands against 
their foreheads, and said with devout and af- 
fecting solemnity. Amen." 

" But, Tom, what kind of towns are those 



TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 155 

that you were now visiting ? — not, of course, 
like the Hottentot villages ; nor, on the other 
hand, friendly as the towns of Barbary." 

" Like all other African towns in this part of 
the world, Medina is surrounded by a high wall 
of clay ; the houses are mere hovels ; a circular 
wall of mud, four feet high, above which is a 
roof of bamboo cane, thatched, which rises like 
a sugar loaf. Their furniture is equally simple, 
a bundle of canes, resting upon feet, covered 
with a mat, or a bullock's hide, serves them for 
their bed ; a water jar, some earthen pots, 
wooden bowls, and a couple of low stools, com- 
plete their stock of necessaries." 

" Did you find the water scarce in this part 
of Africa ?" 

" No : there are here some large rivers which 
supply that necessary of- life in abundance ; but 
when we left the course of these streams we 
were obliged to have negroes to carry water. 
After leaving Medina nothing material occurred 
till we reached Tallakee, the frontier town of 
Bondou, the inhabitants of which get a com- 
fortable subsistence by furnishing provisions to 
the caravans that pass, and by the sale of ivory. 
Here my master was invited to a wrestling 
match, which was given in honour of his arri- 
val ; for they considered the appearance of a 
white man among them as caUing for these pub- 
lic ceremonies. The spectators ranged them- 
selves in a circle around the wrestlers, who 
were strong and active young men : they had 
no dress on but a pair of drawers, and their 



156 TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 

bodies had been made supple with oil, so that 
I think few white men could have thrown him 
who conquered. To this- diversion succeeded 
a dance, in which all the performers had small 
bells fastened to their arms and legs, and as 
they kept very good time to the drum, I assure 
you, it made a pleasing music. 

" It was in this part of our course that we 
saw a great many crocodiles, some of which 
were five and twenty feet in length. These 
animals were peculiarly fierce, and yet the na- 
tives are not afraid to attack them, even in their 
own element, as we had an opportunity of ob- 
serving. A crocodile had for some days infested 
a particular part of the river, and seized several 
of the cattle belonging to the inhabitants of the 
village, as they drank at midday, the time 
when they are always watered. To rid him- 
self and his neighbours of this enemy, a negro, 
having rolled a thick ox-hide around his left 
arm, and taken a two-edged knife, or dagger, 
in his right, fearlessly entered the water, and 
was immediately assailed by the crocodile, who 
raised his head a couple of fefet out of the water, 
and opened his monstrous jaws for the purpose 
of seizing him. This was the moment the 
negro expected ; he instantly thrust his left arm 
down the animal's throat, and the thick folds 
of the hide preventing his biting, he stabbed it 
repeatedly in the belly, where the skin is less 
hard than on the back, and soon dragged it 
lifeless to the bank. 

" Provisions are very cheap in this part of the 



TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 157 

country. I saw a bullock bought for six small 
lumps of amber. The next day we went to a 
village on the banks of the Faleme. The prin- 
cipal mode of livelihood there is by fishing, and 
they catch all the fish in long baskets, made of 
slight cane, placed where the current ^of the 
stream is strongest. The force of the water 
carries down the fish, and they are caught in 
these baskets, which are generally near twenty 
feet long, and when once the fish are in, they 
cannot get out. As for the smaller kinds, they 
are taken in great numbers in hand-nets, which 
are made of cotton. They generally prepare 
their fish for use, by pounding it in a mortar ; 
then, having left it to dry in the sun, they make 
it up in large pieces, as large as our loaf 
bread, and when it is to be used they cut off a 
bit, dissolve it in boiling water, and mix it up 
with some other drink ; but they don't eat it 
plain by itself. 

" We went next to Fatteconda, the principal 
town of the province of Bondou, where the 
king received my master, seated under a large 
shady tree. He was very courteous, and 
showed the greatest delight at an umbrella, 
which my master presented him ; he opened 
and shut it again and again, and seemed to 
wonder how it was made. We parted on very 
good terms with him, and took the road toward 
the kingdom of Kajaaga ; but the heat of the 
day being quite insupportable, my master 
tliouglit it better we should rest till evening and 
then pursue our journey, which we did. Never 



158 TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 

shall I forget, as night came on, and our road 
led through a thick forest : the air was quite 
still, and we could plainly hear the howlings of 
the wild beasts through the wood ; and often, as 
they passed near us, we could plainly see their 
great shadows as they stalked along. I expect- 
ed every minute that they would come upon us ; 
and how we escaped them I know not, but that 
Providence was watching over us, and protect- 
ed us mercifully through that dangerous night. 
We arrived in safety at the city of Joag. It is 
surrounded by a high wall, as is also each sepa- 
rate house. The inhabitants are an industrious 
people, anxious for gain, but only seeking it by 
honest means. We made no stop here, but 
travelled on till we came to the banks of the 
Senegal River, crossed it at a ferry, and from 
thence proceeded through a rich and fertile 
country. We soon after got into the kingdom 
of Kasson ; the king of which, having heard of 
my master's arrival, sent him a present of a milk- 
.white bullock, which is considered a mark .of 
great favour ; and likewise gave him full per- 
mission to pass freely through all his dominions. 
We stopped the next njght at Soolo, but could 
not sleep ; for a great troop of wolves, hyenas, 
and other wild beasts, were prowling around the 
town the whole night, and the inhabitants were 
all endeavouring to drive them off. It is re- 
markable, that the approach of these animals 
was made known to them by the dismal howl- 
ing that all the dogs of the village set up ; and 



TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 159 

this, the people told me, was always a sure sign 
of it to them. 

" But how, Tom, did they drive them away ?" 
" By lighting large fires, shouting and hal- 
looing, and running about with bunches of 
blazing grass in their hands. Indeed, the up- 
roar they made was enough to frighten more 
than the wild beasts. The next day we travel- 
led on, following the windings of the river 
Krieko, through a highly cultivated country, 
where provisions were so cheap, that at a 
market town I saw, I don't know how much 
corn and milk was bought for a few beads. In 
our way to the town of Kemmo, we were tempt- 
ed to ride into a small thicket, in hopes of ga- 
thering some fruit. We were surprised at the 
appearance of two negroes on horseback, who, 
however, were excessively frightened at us. 
The nearer we came to them the more they 
were alarmed, till at last one of them rode off at 
full speed, and the other, as you may be sure, 
did not long stay behind. This amused us ex- 
ceedingly ; and, indeed, if you had seen the 
wild-looking creatures they were, you would 
have thought it more natural that we should fly 
from them. 

" Unfortunately for us, our road, after this, led 
through a Moorish kingdom, where the inhabit- 
ants (I mean the Moors themselves) are un- 
feeling and insolent in the extreme. A party of 
them surrounded, and actually attacked the hut 
in which we lodged ; hissed, shouted at, and 
abused us, and at length seized on all our bag- 



160 TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 

gage. It was in vain for us to make any resist- 
ance. They did not carry off our things, but 
had the impudence to open them before our eyes, 
and help themselves to vi^hatever they took a 
fancy to. 

" You may readily suppose we made our 
escape from this place at as early an hour as 
possible the next morning, and arrived on a 
great feast-day at a neighbouring town, where 
the people were amusing themselves with sing- 
ing and dancing, and all kinds of merriment. 
This lively scene revived our spirits a little, for 
we felt quite cast down and unhappy at the ill 
treatment we had received, and at my poor 
master losing such a quantity of things thai 
were of so much value to him. However, 
there was no help for that now, so we had only 
to make the best of it. The people stopped 
their dance to gaze at us for awhile ; and in- 
deed we should willingly have stayed to look 
on at their sports and feasting, but my master 
♦wished to go to the Moorish king's camp, to 
ask for compensation for all his losses, and to 
request his protection. 

" We found a great number of'dirty-looking 
tents pitched in a wide open plain ; but instead 
of being protected as we hoped, what was our 
astonishment when the people rudely came in 
crowds about us, and pressed upon us, so that 
we were nearly suffocated ! We were greatly 
fatigued after our journey, and suffered dread- 
fully from heat and thirst, but they took no pity 
on us : and this was all before the kincr himself. 



TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 161 

who quietly sat in his tent while we were en- 
during this hardship ; he caused us to be plun- 
dered of almost every thing we had about us, 
and when we begged to be allowed to go away,^ 
glad to escape with our lives, he flatly refused 
to let us stir one step, and informed us we were 
now his prisoners ! Our hearts died within us 
at this ; but we thought our best chance of safety 
was to submit quietly. 

" And here we might have remained for ever, 
had it not happened that the queen expressed a 
great curiosity to see us ; and we were led be- 
fore her, just as you would lead a monkey about 
as a show. She seemed to take pity on us, and 
gave us with her own hand a drink of milk 
each, which was a mark of great favour. En- 
couraged by her kindness, my master at length 
ventured to request her to speak to the king in 
our behalf ; and, in a very short time afterward, 
we were granted our liberty ; and besides that, 
our horses and a great part of our baggage were 
given back to us. Nothing could equal our joy, 
and, as you may be sure, we lost no time in 
setting out on our journey ; but here we suf- 
fered dreadfully from both hunger and thirst, for 
we had no provisions wtth us, and the fear of 
falling again into the hands of the Moors 
made us avoid every habitation, choosing rather 
to subsist on whatever herbs and fruits we could 
meet with on our way : but our road lay through 
a very desert country, and we began soon to 
suffer from want of water ; this grew worse 
and worse every mile we went. We met 
II 



162 TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 

some shepherd boys, with their flocks, and 
asked them to show us the way to the nearest 
spring, but they told us, to our grief, that they 
had not themselves seen any water in the 
woods. We had nothing for it but to travel on. 
One time I climbed to the top of a high tree, to 
look about me, and see if there was any hope 
for us at all ; but nothing was to be seen all 
around but a dreary stretch of barren sandy 
soil. I put up a prayer to Almighty God to 
have mercy upon us, and fixed all my hopes on 
his goodness. My poor master fainted, and, I 
thought, was at the point of death, when it 
seemed, all at once, as if Heaven heard my 
prayers ; for a slight thunder-storm came on, 
attended with heavy rain. This revived us ; 
we spread out our clothes upon the ground, and 
when they were completely soaked, we quench- 
ed our thirst, by sucking the water from them. 
Our extreme thirst being thus somewhat allay- 
ed, we began to suffer from hunger. We again 
looked to that almighty Power who had so 
lately sent us relief, believing that he would not 
forsake us ; and in a short time afterward per- 
ceiving, to our great joy, the smoke of a village 
rising at a distance, we hastened to it. A poor 
woman sat spinning, with a distaff, at the door 
of the nearest cottage, and we begged from 
her a morsel of bread. She instantly fetched 
us some, giving us, at the same time, a delicious 
drink of goat's milk. Nothing could be kinder 
than her hospitality ; and though, in the rest of 
our journey, we often suffered from hunger and 



TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 163 

thirst, we never failed to get relief, even from 
the poorest negro, who sometimes had scarcely 
enough for himself. 

" As we passed the town of Kabla, the na- 
tives were busily employed in gathering the 
fruit of the shea tree, for the purpose of mak- 
ing from it a vegetable butter, which keeps good 
the whole year, without salt. It is whiter, firmer, 
and richer flavoured than the best dairy butter I 
ever tasted, on which account the shea tree is 
highly valued by the natives. It looks, my mas- 
ter said, like the iVmerican oak, and bears a fruit 
like a Spanish olive. The kernel, from which 
the butter is procured, is found inside a greenish 
pulp, covered with a thick rind. 

" After having lodged at a town to which the 
Moors bring salt, beads, and coral, to exchange 
for gold dust and cotton cloth, we again set for- 
ward, and reached Modiboo the next evening. 
On our way we saw a cameleopard trotting 
quietly before us, no way afraid of pursuit. 
This animal is so tall, that a man on horse- 
back could stand between his fore legs, but he 
is perfectly harmless. Here also we had a 
fine view of the Niger, the object of my mas- 
ter's curiosity, stretching east and west. I was 
glad, for his sake, to see it ; but often did I wish 
myself many a mile from it. The air on its 
banks is so filled with moschetoes that it was 
impossible to rest : our clothes were torn to 
rags, so that we had no defence from their 
stings, and we were obliged to walk about the 
whole night, fanning ourselves with our hats. 



164 TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 

" For two days more we advanced to the east- 
ward, it being my master's intention, if possi- 
ble, to reach Tombuctoo, which we heard was 
not many days' journey farther on. We had no 
food, nor money to buy it ; we were without* 
clothes to screen us from the weather, and the 
rainy season had set in ; but, to crown all, 
my poor master, whose constitution, however 
strengthened by habit, was not proof against 
all we endured, fell sick of a dangerous fever. 
For many days his life was in danger. How- 
ever, he did recover, although slowly, and all 
thoughts of pursuing our journey having been 
abandoned, we resolved, without delay, to turn 
our steps to the place whence we had set out. 
In order to avoid Sego, we followed the Niger, 
getting on with great difficulty, from the floods 
caused by the rains, so that we often waded 
breast high, and more than once our horses 
stuck in the mud, and were near perishing 
The cruel Moors had prejudiced the whole 
country against us ; so that, although we pass- 
ed by a great many towns and villages, they 
were unwilling to give us food ; and but for 
• the humanity of a few negroes, we must have 
starved. 

"We did not always follow the windings 
of the river. At one time, quitting .the strand, 
and crossing some hills which lay in our way, 
we entered a peaceful village, called Kooma, 
belonging to a Mandingo merchant. He was 
a kind man. The villagers look up to him as a 
father and the vveary are always w^elcome 



TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 165 

under his roof. Here we rested some time, until 
my master had recovered strength enough to 
set out upon his journey. We felt the neces- 
sity, however, of returning, and after taking 
grateful leave of our kind host, set out for Sibi- 
doloo, over a steep and rocky road. On our 
way thither, we were attacked by a party of 
robbers, who left us nothing but our shirts, 
trowsers, and hats. In this state we entered 
Sibidoloo, and my master having made his case 
known to the dooly, or chief man, he took the 
pipe from his mouth, and said, " Sit down, you 
shall have every thing restored to you. I have 
said it — stay here till you receive them." My 
master was unwilling to remain a burden upon 
him ; the scarcity of food being very great. 
To our surprise, however, the horsey and clothes 
were returned in less than a week. We there- 
fore immediately set out ; for though we were 
sure of suffering from hunger, we could not ex- 
pect those to give us food who had scarcely 
any for themselves. 

*' After wandering from village to village, half 
fed and almost naked, we came to Kamalia, 
where my master made acquaintance with a 
slatee, or slave merchant, who was collecting a 
coffle, or caravan of slaves, in order to sell them 
at Gambia, In the course of conversation, he 
told us of a curious little book that had been 
given him by an English merchant ; he still had 
it in his possession, but had never found any 
body able to read it. , I shall not attempt to de- 
scribe my master's dehght when he found it to 



166 TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 

be an English prayer-book; the ease with which 
he read it gave the slatee a high opinion of his 
abihties, so that he begged us to stay till he 
should set out with his coffle, when we could 
travel safely under his protection. This was 
too kind an offer to be refused ; he placed us, 
accordingly, in a clean hut, furnished us with 
mats for sleeping on, an earthen jar for water, 
and a drinking cup : these accommodations, 
simple as they may appear, were to us the 
greatest luxuries, after all we had suffered. 

" In Kamalia, and under the protection of this 
man, we remained until he was ready to set out 
with his coffle. Why should I distress you by 
saying that thirty-five of our fellow-creatures 
were yoked in pairs, neck to neck, and in that 
way conducted to Pisania ? However, to 
abridge my narrative. After a journey, without 
accident, and distinguished by nothing but the 
sufferings of our poor fellow-travellers, we 
reached the end of our toils, and saw ourselves 
once more under the hospitable roof of the Eng- 
lish merchants who had so kindly, assisted my 
master before we set out." 
>* " But tell me what kind of drink do the 
Africans take with their meals ? for I don't think 
I have heard that from you yet." 

" The usual drink," answered Thomas, " of 
the inhabitants of the part of Africa where we 
now were is water ; but they make a beverage 
which resembles our beer, and is extremely 
pleasant. The grain made use of for this pur- 
pose is a kind of millet, which is prepared like 



TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 167 

our malt, and to the juice they add a bitter, 
which gives it a very agreeable taste. 

" They also extract a juice from several trees : 
but that which yields the greatest quantity, and 
is most liked, is a kind of palm, which rises to 
the height of sixty feet, or more. A good tree 
of this kind, I have been informed, will give ten 
or twelve pounds of juice, which, if drank 
immediately, is sweet and mild ; but if kept for 
twenty-four hours, it ferments, becomes sharp, 
and would make a man who took it freely as 
drunk as wine." 

" I have been thinking, Tom," says old 
Jackson, " that there is very little of the western 
coast of Africa known ; for though you have now 
led me around this great quarter of the world, 
you have said nothing, I remark, concerning the 
western shore : from the Cape of Good Hope to 
the Gambia is more than three thousand miles, 
and yet you have not mentioned a single place 
in all that great distance. I think, if there had 
been any part of it worth visiting, your master 
would have contrived to get to it." 

" Yes, father, there are, as I heard at Pisania, 
settlements on the coast ; one at Sierra Leone, 
and another at Bulama, on the River Grande: 
These are both south of the Gambia. There is 
also one belonging to the French at Senegal, 
south of the same river. All these, however, 
though many years established, have made but 
little progress inland, and may be almost said 
to be still in their infancy. That at Sierra Leone 
was established for the benevolent purpose of 



168 TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 

restoring to their native country a number of 
negroes, who, having been carried away from 
Africa, Avhen very young, as slaves, and after- 
ward becoming free, wished to return. It was 
intended they should act as merchants between 
their countrymen and Europe, and persuade 
them not to kidnap their neighbours for the 
purpose of selling them as slaves, but rather to 
be industrious in raising those articles of pro- 
duce which they could exchange for our goods.* 
" Notwithstanding a great many disappoint- 
ments, the settlement of Sierra Leone still ex- 
ists ; and it is getting gradually over those pre- 
judices which at first opposed it. You must 
see, however, that it offered no great inducement 
to a traveller to go there. But while we stayed 
at Pisania we heard of a kingdom called Ashan- 
tee ; and if the account of it which we heard 
was true, it well deserves to be mentioned. 
The capital of Ashantee is Coomassie, one hun- 
dred and fifty miles from a small English set- 
tlement called Cape Coast Castle ; and an em- 

* We perceive that our friend Thomas has omitted to 
mention the American colony at Liberia. This is a dis- 
trict on the western coast of Africa, extending two hun- 
dred and eighty miles in length, and from twenty to thirty 
miles in breadth, and is in the vicinity of the English set- 
tlement at Sierra Leone. The climate io represented as 
serene ; the soil deep, rich, and fertile. It is watered by 
numerous rivers. A portion of this country was purchased 
in 1S21 by the x\merican Colonization Society, for the 
purpose of colonizing such manumitted slaves, or free per- 
sons of colour, as were desirous of returning to the land 
of their forefathers. The colony is prosperous. — Am. Ed. 



TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 169 

bassy was sent thither to make a treaty of peace 
with the king ; his subjects being in the habit 
of making attacks on the people who lived undei 
the English protection. When the embassy 
arrived, it was met by no less than five thou- 
sand warriors, with music, horns, drums, rat- 
tles, gongs, added to the firing of muskets, and 
the shouts of the crowds. The dress of the 
warriors was a helmet, with gilded rams' horns, 
decked out with plumes of eagles' feathers, and 
fastened under their chins with bands of shells ; 
the vest was red cloth, adorned with gold and 
silver ; leopards' tails hung down their backs-, 
and from different parts of their bodies were 
hung small brass bells, which jingled as they 
moved. They wore loose cotton trowsers, with 
red leather boots ; a small quiver of poisoned 
arrows hung from their waist, and they carried 
a small spear in their left hand, covered with 
red cloth and sjlk tassels. As the party ad- 
vanced toward the king's palace, the streets 
were crowded with spectators ; and the open 
porches before the houses were filled with 
females and children, anxious to see the white 
men. Indeed, the whole account is so like what 
is represented on the stage, that my master was 
inclined to doubt the truth of it, but he was as- 
sured it was the fact. These people are re- 
markable for their cleanly habits ; and their 
liouses are as clean as their persons. The 
Ashantee loom is like ours, and they make in 
it cloth of great fineness. They paint, are good 
goldsmiths, and excel in pottery ; they are also 



170 TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 

very good carpenters. But this is the best side 
of the picture. They are fierce, and, in some 
of their customs, more barbarous than you 
vv^ould expect to find people with such a know- 
ledge of the arts. On their great festivals they 
often put a number of persons to death, having 
first tortured them with the most ingenious 
cruelty. Some of their festivals take place 
every twenty days, and there are not fewer 
than one hundred sacrificed at each. On the 
death of the king's mother, no less than one 
hundred were butchered. The party were re- 
quired to be present at one of these bloody 
executions ; but they were obliged to force their 
way out, being no longer able to witness such 
a review. How wicked, thought I, is the hu- 
man heart when under the dominion of supersti- 
tion and ignorance ! and how happy it would be 
for this people if some of those good men who 
have carried the gospel of peace to the Hot- 
tentots could lead the poor Ashantees to the 
possession of that true religion which teaches 
love to God and love to our neighbour, and 
shows us that if we hope for mercy we must be 
merciful ourselves ! 

" Thus ended my adventures jn Africa. When 
we reached Pisania, from which we had been 
eighteen months absent, we were received with 
great kindness. Our absence had been so 
much more protracted than my master had ex- 
pected, that they supposed we must have been 
cut oflT by some of the Mo«msh nations in our 
course ; and they were the more certain of this 



TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 171 

from the number of travellers who had perished 
when attempting the same route. Our wearing 
apparel had been kept safely for us, so that we 
both put on the English dress, never again, I 
hope, to exchange it for that of a,ny other nation, 
and had our venerable beards shaved. For my 
c wn part, I did not regret the loss of this trou- 
blesome appendage, but it was curious to hear 
some of the natives, who had seen us before we 
cut them off; they said we were suddenly 
changed from men to boys ; and, I confess, 
though I disliked a long beard reaching down 
to my breast, I thought it did produce that 
change in us. A few days after, an x\merican 
vessel setting sail, we took our passage in her 
for Charleston, North America, and meeting at 
sea with a West-Indiaman, bound for England, 
we shifted into her, and, after a pleasant though 
slow passage, arrived in Falmouth. 

" Here I took leave of my kind master, who, 
on all occasions, had treated me more like a 
friend than his servant ; indeed, I can truly say 
I looked upon him as both ; for, in all our suf- 
ferings, he was ever ready to give me the 
kindest advice, as well as to talk with me about 
every thing that struck him as worth attention. 
When we were parting he paid me my wages 
in full, though on several occasions he had ad- 
vanced me small sums on account ; in addition 
to which he gave me a most liberal present. 
* Go home now, Jackson,' said he, ' and share 
with your parents what you have made. You have 
told me your story, and you know I never con 



172 TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 

cealed from you my opinion that you were 
wrong in becoming discontented with your situ- 
ation, and wrong also in leaving the shelter of 
your father's roof, on the wild scheme of seeking 
your fortune.' And surely, father, he was right. 
It is true, the Almighty has, in his mercy, 
brought me safe through a great many dangers, 
and sent me home with the means of making 
your last days happy ; but this should be no 
encouragement to those who have a roving dis- 
position to follow my example. Jem Hobson 
left home along with me, and it pleased God 
that he should never return to it. I have, there- 
fore, learned one great truth, which I would 
gladly recommend to every one who reads my 
travels ; it is short, and might well be written 
in letters of gold : — ^Wiih industry and content- 
ment we may he happy in the humblest station ; 
and, whatever befalls us, let us trust in the Al- 
mighty, whose arm is powerful to save. He doth 
all things well ; he knoweth what is good for us, 
and he hath promised to guide those who look to 
him for wisdom.'' 

" With such opinions as these, Tom," said the 
old man, the tears rising to his eyes as he spoke, 
" I no longer regret your cruel departure and 
your long absence. Had you returned to me 
poor as you left me, but blest with such wisdom 
as this, I should say you were returned as rich 
as I could desire. Wealth, Tom, may belong 
to the worthless — and many a time we see it 
denied to the deserving ; but there is one thing 
which money cannot buy, nor poverty take 



TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 173 

away ; it is that which gives us peaceful sleep, 
and happy thoughts while we are awake ; it is 
that, Tom, which you must have often felt the 
want of; for often and often you accused your- 
self, I warrant, of your undutiful desertion of 
your parents ; need I say that the possession of 
which I speak, and which we should desire 
most to obtain, is that of a good conscience^ 



THE END. 



I ^(^\f 6 1901 



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